


The High Road

by bluedenimdress



Series: bluedenimdress [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Canon, Drugs, Explicit Language, F/M, Makeup Sex, My First Fanfic, POV Alternating, Romance, Sex, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 03:37:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 75,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6103537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedenimdress/pseuds/bluedenimdress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sole Survivor from the southwest, trying to put her life back together with the help of John Hancock. After some disappointing discoveries, her priorities shift, resulting in some poor decisions. </p><p>Contains spoilers - it loosely follows the main quest, but I reinterpreted a lot of it to suit my purposes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hancock

**Author's Note:**

> This was the first fic I ever wrote, so it originally had a lot of awkward phrasing. I have since revised it and blended it with my second fic, Companion Piece, and I believe it to be much improved. If you have read it before, rest assured that all the original stuff is still there, only enhanced. (It also means all my old comments are out of order since I restructured the chapters :( sorry, just ignore that)
> 
> I realize I still have a lot of room for improvement, but I stand by my claim that it is a much better story now than it originally was, and I encourage you to give it a shot and leave me some constructive criticisms.

"There she is. Felina: the most resilient woman in the Commonwealth."

"Goddammit! !Te voy a matar, puto! Where is my son?!"

"What's the cliché? So close, yet so far away? That's Shaun. But don't worry. You'll die knowing he's safe and happy. At the Institute."

"The Institute? Well, I'll find him no matter where he is. Nothing will stop me!"

"Haven't you been paying attention? You don't find the Institute. The Institute finds you….But I think we've been talking long enough. We both know how this has to end, so…are you ready?"

 

My vision narrowed as the adrenaline flooded through my body. Everything I had done since I left Vault 111 had been building toward this moment, but the correct answer to his question was no, I was not ready.

Back at the office door, Preston was holding off the gen 1 synth guards – two humanoid robots with exposed circuitry and very little in the way of any attempt to make them look real. His laser musket punctured their metal chest plates and they were too busy trying to return fire to even think about me.

So it was just me and Kellogg.

Before I could steady my trembling finger to pull the trigger, I felt hot steel break through my leather leg piece and dig into the flesh on my shin. Outwardly, I hardly flinched, but the burning sting shocked me awake, and I was suddenly firing on all cylinders.

_Okay. Now, I'm ready._

Kellogg may have fired the first shot, but he was a dead man. He just didn't know it yet.

I squeezed the trigger on my shotgun, releasing the spray of fire-hot pellets. I didn't wait to see how much damage that did. I sprang backwards, grabbing a frag grenade from my belt. I pulled the pin and tossed it behind him. The blast threw desk and computer parts everywhere, setting fire to much of the office and throwing a typewriter at my face. When the debris settled, I stepped forward to find Kellogg on the ground, crippled but still alive, his gun out of reach. I pulled my machete out.

"You know," he wheezed while holding his chest, blood dripping down his face. "Killing me won't bring your husband back."

I raised the machete back. "No, but it's going to feel damn good." I swung at his neck with the heavy, sword-like blade. I didn't completely decapitate him, but his partially-severed head hung at his shoulder. A small circuit board and some wires stuck out from the back of his skull with gray matter dangling from it.

"All this tech. You were barely human."

* * *

_Goddammit, why the fuck did anyone still have typewriters when we have working computers?_

I rubbed my cheek where I could tell a bruise was forming and felt a familiar crunch in the back of my mouth. I probed the area inside that cheek with my tongue, and a tooth broke free. With a forceful spit, it hit the ground, all bloody and broken. At least it wasn't in the front.

Those first few months outside the vault had been like that – constantly falling apart and learning to just pick myself up and keep going.

Preston eyeballed the pocket knife I was holding over some residual flames from the explosion. "What are you doing?"

"Sterilizing the blade."

"Don't!" Preston asserted. "Do not try to pull that bullet out. You'll only make it worse."

"No, I want it out." I calmly ran my fingers through my short, dark hair, pushing it out of my face.

"You could bleed out or get an infection –"

The knife was already glowing a dull red. "It's not that deep. I'm going for it." I took a swig of the vodka in my bag and then poured some on the knife. It sizzled, and steam rose up from it as the glow faded. Pulling my belt taut around the top of my calf, I started digging into my shin. I could barely feel the knife, but I was feeling an irritation where the bullet was. I flicked the tip of the blade, and a small piece of lead popped out. A trickle of blood raced down my leg, and I poured half the fifth of vodka on the open wound. "Fffffuck!" That stung a little bit.

"That's going to leave a scar," Preston remarked. "You know, that was pretty dumb. It's not necessary to remove bullets from a wound."

"It was bothering me." I was really more pissed that it had ruined my good black suit.

"That giant hole you just made in your leg is going to bother you."

"Nah, this is better." I sucked at the fifth some more and began bandaging my leg.

I really liked Preston. In fact, I still do. He was dark-skinned, handsome and athletic, and always wore a long duster and a battered militia hat with one side pinned up. He was the last surviving Minuteman after the Quincy Massacre. Before that, the Minutemen were a band of soldiers that was meant to be ready "at a minute's notice" to protect citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Now, in 2287, they were all but forgotten.

I was traveling with him because up until then, he was the most in line with my principles out of everyone I had met since I had emerged from that clinical tomb Vault-Tec passed off as a bomb shelter.

For the most part, Preston was hopelessly fixated on rebuilding the Minutemen and developing settlements in the Commonwealth. He had appointed me as the General after I saved him and a few people from a group of raiders in Concord. I was willing to help, because this world really was in need of a serious makeover since the bombs fell, but I had my own personal shit I needed to work through, as well.

"What's next, General?"

I started pulling at the wires jutting from Kellogg's neck hole out of curiosity, and Preston winced. "Grab whatever loot you can find, and let's get back to Nick."

* * *

I had never been to Goodneighbor, but Nick, the tattered synth detective from Diamond City, knew a doctor at the Memory Den that could possibly help me figure out the next step to finding my son, so we agreed to meet him there.

Goodneighbor was one of the few prominent settlements in the Boston area. The blasted and scorched environment littered with debris was typical of what I had seen of the post-nuclear war Commonwealth, but the close proximity of the ruined buildings fallen into each other blocked a lot of obvious paths, and the streets outside of Goodneighbor were a maze of dilapidated structures with danger around every corner.

I had been closely monitoring our location on my pip-boy, but was still having trouble finding a way to the town. The bulky personal computer I wore on my wrist was good for a lot of things - mainly its map functions - but it was by no means perfect. This was one of those rare occasions when it wasn't being very useful.

We rounded a corner, and I was so relieved to see the town's neon sign.

We crossed the threshold into the gritty town, and we were immediately approached by a thuggish looking guy trying to extort us. I was weary from fighting my way there through the super mutants, feral ghouls, and raiders that dwelled just outside Goodneighbor's walls, and I had no patience left. In an unfamiliar town with a reputation for being rough, it probably could have ended badly for me, but I responded with some vague threat, anyway. I can't remember the exact words, but my point was clear: he needed to fuck off.

And that's when I met the town's mayor, John Hancock. He came over, and I watched with heightened interest as this suave ghoul chastised the thug, Finn, for giving us a hard time.

Most of my experience with ghouls before then had been with the feral kind. They were generally gaunt and plagued with discolored, decaying-looking skin, sunken eye sockets, little to no hair, and a crater where the nose should be - turned that way by exposure to radiation that didn't kill them for whatever reason. I don't pretend to understand how that works. I studied law in college, not science.

Aside from his broad, sturdy shoulders and confident posture, Hancock was no different than any other ghoul in the looks department. His voice was low and raspy, and his eyes had a dark film over them, making them appear to be completely black if you didn't know better.

His red colonial coat that reached most of the way down his legs was dirty and falling apart at the seams, and was appropriately outfitted with a frilly button down shirt and blue vest. He wore tall boots folded down at the calf over a pair of jeans, and an American flag was tied around his waist. The whole ensemble was topped off with a dark, three-cornered hat. His flamboyant costume was an appealing contrast to his unfortunate physical characteristics

Hancock employed a little misdirection with his off hand, and in one smooth motion, he shanked the motherfucker, who dropped like a sack of rocks.

First impressions are everything.

* * *

Preston and I met up with Nick, as planned. Dr. Amari used the augmenter I found in Kellogg's brain to access his memories, and from there, we concluded that I may find a way inside the Institute if I tracked down their ex-scientist, Virgil, who was hiding out in the "Glowing Sea" - which was the endearing term given to ground zero southwest from Boston. Given the immense amount of radiation still lingering there, I'd say it was a pretty appropriate name.

While sifting through Kellogg's memories, I saw that Shaun had grown to be about ten years old since he was kidnapped, and he was being taken care of. I knew I was getting closer and the meeting with Dr. Amari left me finally feeling like I could relax, just a little.

We stepped out into the lobby of the Memory Den, and Preston started talking about plans to head to a nearby settlement. I had already resolved that I wanted to just stay there for the night, and I could tell Preston wasn't comfortable with that idea, so I gave him an out, and he went on to Sanctuary without me. Nick offered to accompany me so I wouldn't be alone, but I assured him I could handle myself.

I was barely outside the doors when I saw people rushing toward the central building of the town. Of course, I had to see what was going on, so I followed. From the balcony above a sign that read "The Third Rail", Hancock was addressing the citizens of Goodneighbor.

"We freaks gotta stick together, and the best way to stick together is to keep an eye out for what drives us apart, ya feel me?"

The people were eating it up. "You tell it like it is, Hancock!"

He started demonizing the Institute, calling them the boogeyman of the Commonwealth, which I had noticed was the general consensus throughout the land, but there was something different about his way. The widespread complaints I had heard from all over about the Institute had mostly been just that - complaints. But this mayor sounded like someone who would be willing to make a difference about it if he had the proper opportunity.

What I found most intriguing was just the fact that a ghoul was mayor of an established city. I was aware that civilized ghouls existed, but people tended to discriminate against them. His political role was a testament to the nature of this city. It was full of troublemakers, drifters, and misfits. It was only fitting that the most debonair ghoul in existence be their leader.

"They can't control us if we're not afraid!"

That line really hit home for me.

I was starting to feel the same kind of draw to him as the rest of the city. Maybe it was something in his voice. Maybe it was in his threads. I had no idea. By the time his address was over, I was eager to see Hancock again.

I had not yet secured myself a bed for the night, but I decided to throw caution to the wind and enter the watering hole below his balcony and see if I could find him hanging around there.

I hadn't seen a bar like the Third Rail in the wastes. It was set up in an old subway station. The bouncer was also a ghoul. Whitechapel Charlie, the bartender, was a hovering three-legged Mr. Handy robot. Magnolia was a sultry, dark-haired singer with an arsenal of jazzy songs I was surprised to have never heard before. I ordered a bourbon and just soaked up the environment.

I felt extremely comfortable among the outcasts of what passed for normal society, and for the most part, I was enjoying myself, but after more than a couple drinks, I was starting to feel disappointed that the mayor didn't make an appearance. What was I expecting? I couldn't just wander from place to place and expect to be VIP everywhere I ended up. Because no one had paid me any mind since I had walked in, I ordered what would be my last drink for the night and decided to make a round through the patrons before I left for the night.

* * *

The next morning, I was trolling around town with a mildly attractive hired gun named MacCready. I had met him in the Third Rail the night before and thought I'd see if he was a better match for my disposition.

"Didn't you have some important business to attend to across the Commonwealth?" He asked impatiently, as I dragged him around Goodneighbor.

"Yeah, yeah, keep your hat on." I was still working some things out in my head, but I was pretty certain I wouldn't be taking him with me to the Glowing Sea. I was leaning toward Nick because he would be unaffected by the radiation, but either way, I wasn't ready to commit to that journey yet. I wasn't ready to let MacCready off the hook just yet, either. I wanted to get 250 caps worth of work out of him, first, since my dumbass decided to hire a friend while I was drunk. "Let's see what's down this alley."

"What? Really? Why?"

"Because I won't be satisfied until I have seen every corner of this city."

Going down that particular alley where Bobbi No-Nose was turned out to be a good call. Like a good authority figure, Hancock had his finger on the pulse of the community and had been well aware of my activities around town long before I ended up on his doorstep, but the digging work I did for Bobbi really grabbed his attention. How could it not when the sole purpose ended up being to steal from him?

She had kept me in the dark about it the whole time under the guise that we would be stealing from Diamond City's bigoted mayor. It was a gray area, but it seemed acceptable to me. We blasted through underground tunnels filled with mutated, crab-like mirelurks. However once our tunnel opened up to Hancock's stronghold and I discovered her intentions, I talked her out of it. He really got his claws in me during my brief encounters with him, and he was not someone I wanted to screw over.

Hancock's guard, Fahrenheit, was a stout, fire-haired woman in heavy armor with half of her head shaved. She was there to witness the whole thing go down and allowed Bobbi to leave unharmed. Fahrenheit advised me to speak with Hancock once it was over.

In the end, it was good for both parties that I had gotten involved, plus it led me to the kind of facetime with Goodneighbor's mayor that I wanted.

He invited me to have a seat in his office. I planted myself on a worn out couch while he walked out a couple of skanky-looking girls that were reluctant to part from his company. One was still adjusting her clothes with one hand while clinging to Hancock with the other. He slapped her on the ass on her way out the door, and she giggled. MacCready just smirked.

In front of me, there was a coffee table full of open bottles of booze, dirty ashtrays, and assorted chems. A knife stood up from where it was gouged into the wood. If there weren't so many eyes present, I probably would have pocketed a few of the drugs, since they always seem to produce a pretty penny when trading, but since choosing not to steal from Hancock is what got me there in the first place, I recognized it as a bad idea all around.

Deep down, I was secretly excited by the ambiance.

We chatted for a while. He expressed his gratitude for the way I handled things at the stronghold and offered me some caps. I wasn't exactly hurting for money, but I accepted it anyway. I figured it would make up for me hiring MacCready when I didn't need to, as long as I could avoid sharing it with him.

Hancock held a bag of caps out for me, and as I reached for it, his rough, blemished hand grazed mine. I tried to hide my shudder.

I wasn't shy about being the new girl to the Commonwealth, and I inquired about his ghoulish appearance. He showed no remorse in his explanation of doing it to himself with a one-of-a-kind experimental radioactive drug. He remarked that he thought the high was worth it, despite the physical side effects. He claimed his "king of the zombies" look was a hit with the ladies. It also left him practically immortal since ghouls aged so much more slowly than humans. It's another side effect of the radiation. Don't ask me.

The only complaint he had about it was that it noticeably raised his tolerance towards chems.

He gave me a brief rundown of how he came to be the mayor of Goodneighbor. It involved taking down his tyrant predecessor, which he was inspired to do after getting too high and stumbling across the clothes of the actual historical figure, John Hancock, on display in the State House – hence his epithet and outfit.

I pointed out to him how some of his actions I had observed came off as a little tyrannical for someone who claimed to be the leader of the only truly free town in the Commonwealth. _That_ was something he seemed remorseful about.

Apparently, the comparison to the town's previous leader got him on edge. He started dropping hints about wanting to go on a walkabout, and I just put it out there. "Why don't you come with me?"

And he bit. "Alright. I think that's just the thing I need. People in power shouldn't get to be too comfortable, and that's what I'm becoming."

"Are you sure you can just leave? I mean, since you're the mayor?"

"Ah, I've done it before. It keeps me honest. Let me just say a few words to my people."

While Hancock gave his farewell speech to the town, I divided up loot with MacCready and dismissed him.

"You should have said something before." MacCready declared.

I was confused. "What are you talking about?"

"That you wanted to meet the mayor. He and I are pretty close. I could have made that happen and we could have avoided doing all that crap for Bobbi… Would have saved you some caps, too." He deliberately cleared his throat while holding out his hand.

I reluctantly gave him half the caps Hancock had just given me. "Well, I mean, that's not the only reason we did that."

"Sure it is. All the ladies love Hancock," he remarked as he left. "And he lo-o-oves them, so watch your back, alright?"

Hancock stepped back in from the balcony. "So, you ready to get this show on the road?"

I was still a little mixed up by MacCready's comments. "You're sure you want to travel together?"

"Yeah, I do. You seem like the right kind of trouble."


	2. Raider Camp

We were barely outside Goodneighbor when my pip-boy began blinking.

"Hey, your thing is trying to get your attention," Hancock informed me.

"Yeah, I know. It's just telling me it's picking up a distress signal."

He narrowed his eyes. "Are you just going to ignore it?"

"You see that building over there?" I pointed to a very tall structure off in the distance.

"Trinity Tower?"

"Yeah, it's coming from there. I already checked it out before I came to Goodneighbor. The building was full of super mutants, mostly dead, but not entirely. I explored it thoroughly and didn't find anyone."

Hancock put a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun. "That building has a lot of floors. Did you go all the way to the top?"

"Of course. There was a holding cell up there, but it was open. I'm telling you, no one was there. Whoever set up the distress signal either escaped already or was rescued."

"Or was eaten by the super mutants."

"No, I don't think so. There were no human bodies, but plenty of dead super mutants."

He glowered. "Well, I hope they made it out alright."

"That's the impression I got."

* * *

I've always been really good at thinking on my feet and adapting to unusual situations, so it really isn't surprising how quickly I got acclimated to this rough new world. And when I really think about it, it's not too much of a stretch to explain how easily it corrupted my pre-war values. We had conveniences and luxuries, and we had social expectations and standards that kept most people from being barbaric, but we always knew the bombs were going to drop eventually – evidence that "civilized" people never completely escape their primal urges of greed and bloodlust. I am no exception.

As a lawyer, I experienced more greed first hand than most people do, and on a daily basis, I had to fake politeness and civility in a variety of situations where I would much rather choke an ignorant cabron to death than endure them, but that's life, right? I had occasionally wished the world would come to end so humans could start over with a blank slate as equals with nothing. I figured this was the only way we could correct the corrupt, unbalanced hierarchy already in place. Well, you should be careful what you wish for.

I got used to the kill or be killed structure of the wastes with ease. Coming out of that vault, I was hurt and confused, but I was mostly just full of rage, and getting to take it out on raiders with a machete is probably not healthy, but it was cathartic nonetheless.

Then I started getting good with guns. At first, it gave me a rush to see the inside of a skull explode into little pieces of gray matter around me. I would cycle through a whole range of emotions, from shock and disgust to cockiness. Then that feeling of, "I want to do it again!" And it's like Hancock says, the Commonwealth provides.

In the beginning, it was exciting to wipe out the sick bastards, but I soon realized that raider encounters were extremely common.

I was just starting to experiment with a sniper rifle, but I had a couple other small suppressed weapons at my disposal that I was proficient with. I had a whole system in place by the time I got to Goodneighbor.

It goes like this: You see the dim lights of a raider camp off in the distance and immediately duck down and move quietly. Stick to the shadows. Line up a head in your sights and, very carefully, lead with your barrel and pick them off one at a time before the others even know what's going on. Upon victory, you loot their camp, and if it's late, you make a meal from whatever food they have lying around and get a good night's rest in their sleeping bags before continuing on your way.

I should have discussed this with Hancock beforehand.

He had a different idea of how to handle things. "Hancock, _no_!" I hissed in a whisper as he ran in, guns blazing, and took them head on. There were about six of them, and they didn't hesitate to start shooting as soon as they heard him. I tried to hang back and shoot from a distance with whatever pistol I was able to grab first from my waistband, but I got flustered and could not steady my hand. The only shot I got off before they realized where I was completely missed, and I was forced to take the same direct approach as Hancock. Completely thrown off my game, I stood up out of the bush I was crouched in and started gunslinging.

Hancock was highly visible with a nearby lantern accentuating his silhouette in the night. I could see him deftly handling two raiders in close range, shooting one directly in the face with his shotgun, and smooth as butter, swinging around to hit number two with the grip, knocking him to the ground. He put a foot on top of him and blew the guy's head off. Without missing a beat, he sprang off of the corpse like a diving board, landing into a momentous sprint after a third guy, whom I was coming under fire from.

I had him in my sights when I got floored by a baseball bat that clipped my shoulder, knocking the breath out of me. I rolled to one side, narrowly dodging a second swing aimed at my temple. On my ass, scrambling backwards, I fumbled around with my gun until I was able to get a single shot off into the guy's kneecap. Tissue and blood sprayed everywhere as his calf separated from his thigh. He screamed and hit the ground, still alive. I got to my feet and bashed his head with the butt of the gun until he stopped moving. No sense wasting ammo.

I only looked down on the work at my feet for a moment before I caught my breath and started scanning the scene for anymore threats. I could only see one raider still standing, and Hancock was already going to work on him with a blade. I heard the remaining raider's final agonizing groan as he was gutted. Letting out a huge sigh, I started trudging through the brush toward the camp.

"That was some impressive fighting," I told Hancock once I was within earshot.

"This ain't my first rodeo, sister," he said as he was wiping the blood off of his knife.

"Yeah, well, me neither." I collapsed into a broken chair, exhausted from the dwindling adrenaline. "This scuffle was more than what I am used to."

He cocked his head at me and smirked. "You don't say?"

I was looking down at my blood-soaked gear. "Yeah, I usually take a stealthier approach. I haven't had to get my hands dirty like this in a while."

"I can do stealthy. In fact, it's necessary with some of the more dangerous types out here, but not raiders. They're like shooting fish in a barrel, and I find it kinda enjoyable to get in their face like that just 'cause I can, ya know?"

"Yeah, I guess." I avoided his gaze, slightly annoyed and rubbing my shoulder. "It's kind of sloppy, though. Risky, wastes bullets. There's plenty enough excitement in the Commonwealth without manufacturing brawls."

"Stealth it is, then. You shoulda said so before. You're going to have to communicate better than that, if you want us to act as a team and survive." He was now standing over me at arm's length.

Despite my aggravation and his tone, I could see kindness in his scarred face. I smiled at him. "You're right. We've only just started traveling together. I can't expect you to read my mind. Not on the first day, anyway."

Returning my smile, he extended a hand to pull me up. "Come on. Let's settle in for the night and get to know each other better."

"I've got it." I pushed myself up out of the chair, wincing through the shoulder pain.

"Wow, you're a tough one," he remarked with a little bitterness in his tone.

"Yep. That's me." My words were strained, what with the radiating pain and all, which I'm sure was reflected by my scrunched up face. I'm ashamed to admit it, even back then, but if it were someone else's hand being offered to help me up, I would have took it. Back then, I was still put off by the whole ghoul thing. Hancock's body language indicated that he knew this as he looked down and rubbed his own hand before shoving it in a pocket. I didn't mean to make him self-conscious, but the damage was already done.

I tried to change the topic before he had the chance to think about it too much. "So, what's on the menu?" I opened a nearby cooler and peered inside. "We've got….dog meat." I frowned. "…Salisbury steak….ugh…halfuva…human arm? Jesús Cristo…"

"Eh, I'm not very hungry," Hancock remarked as he slid an intact chair over to the table.

"No, we gotta eat something. We haven't ate all day. I think I've got a can of Cram left." I started rifling through my duffle bag. "Somewhere."

"You go ahead. I don't eat much." He pulled an inhaler of jet from his pocket.

"Asthmatic, huh?" I said, snidely.

I could tell my joke didn't land when he raised an eyebrow, "Boy, you really are fresh out the vault."

"No," I sighed. "I know what that is. I'm just fucking with you."

"Good. For a moment there, I thought I'd made a huge mistake." He set the chem down and dug around in his pocket until he found another. "I got more than enough," he said, pushing the jet toward me.

"No, thanks. I don't use."

He stared at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

"I push from time to time though," I offered, sounding like the dorky kid trying to fit in.

"So you don't have a problem with me using then." He pressed down on the canister before I could reply.

I felt like it was the start of a poorly-written after school special. I shrugged. "I suppose it would be hypocritical of me if I did, so, no. Go ahead."

Not like he was actually waiting for my permission.

His lips sealed tightly around the mouthpiece until I could hear the dying rattles of the jet's last breath struggling to escape. Upon his exhale, his repose was visibly reflected in his posture. "Hypocritical because you have your own vice, or because you sell chems?"

"Both." I said, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. I lit one and sat down at the table with the solitary can of Cram I had finally found and set it between us. We both stared at the perfectly preserved, 200 year-old, unopened can containing a pink cube of pressed meat for a moment before looking up at each other. "Maybe I'm not that hungry either."

He chuckled.

I tuned my pip-boy radio to the Diamond City radio station. It was playing some jaunty big band song, per the usual. "Ok, real talk."

"Oh lord. Please don't kill my buzz."

"Nah, it's nothing too bad, I just want to get something off my chest. Why were you so willing to come with me? It shouldn't have been that easy."

"Don't get your ego all inflated, honey. I know what you're thinking, but it's simpler than that. You're a unicorn. Do you know what that is?"

"Yeah, I know what a unicorn is." I resented being patronized. "I should be the one who's surprised you've heard of them."

"Right, so you already know how rare you are then. You're like a unicorn. Or an alien. You're a time traveler. Vault dwellers ain't that unheard of, but they were all born in the vault. There are 200 plus year old ghouls who were around before the bombs dropped, but they're used to this life now and don't behave any more differently than anyone else. But you, you're a doll that's been factory sealed in mint condition for over two centuries. All of this is brand new to you. You're like some failed social experiment, a beautiful disaster, and I was intrigued the moment I heard about you. I had to see what's up."

He lit a cigarette of his own. "And all that stuff I said about needing to get away from Goodneighbor ain't a lie. When you showed up, it seemed like the perfect time to act on that."

He exhaled a column of smoke through the hole in the center of his face. It danced up the divots in his cheeks, clinging to the tips of his hat in thin streams before dissipating into the air. "A better question would be why did you want me to go with you so badly? You trounced into town with a companion already in tow. You procured a new one at the bar, and then you ditched him at the first opportunity to travel with a ghoul when you so obviously are repulsed by us."

"What?! No, I-"

"You ain't gotta do that." He spoke with exaggerated hand gestures, and my eyes were drawn to the orange trails made by the cherry of his cigarette in the dim lighting. "Ain't like I'm angling for anything, but I wanted you to know, ya aint very good at hiding it." He propped his feet up on the table and reclined.

Wow, I'm a piece of shit and I didn't even realize it. "It's not like that. You're the first non-feral I've spent any real time with. I'm just…adjusting to everything." I started rubbing my face, trying to massage the embarrassment away.

He wasn't responding. He's in control of the situation now, as long as I keep talking…

"Really, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come off like that. I really like you." That was true but it sounded so insincere.

_Just keep digging a hole…_

"The very first moment I saw you, you stabbed a guy to death for practically nothing, and I thought that was … for some reason, I keep playing it over in my head…"

He put his hands up. "Okay, I've heard enough. It's fine. I like you, too, alright? No hard feelings."

Where was I going with that? I shuddered to think what else would have spewed out of my mouth if he didn't cut me off. "Okay, good."

"As much as I lo-o-ove hearing you talk about me," he smirked, "I'm really curious to hear your story. I've heard bits and pieces second hand, but I want to hear it straight from the unicorn's mouth."

"You're charming, you know that?" I said with a hint of sarcasm.

"Yes, but we ain't talking about me, remember?"

"Well, what do you want to know?"

"Whatever you tell me. I can learn more about you by what you chose to tell me and what cards you play close to your chest than if I were to ask specific questions."

"Pretty smart, but does it still work after you explain it to me?"

He was leaning his chair back on two legs, now. "I guess we'll see."

Fuck it, I'm all in. "Before the war, I lived in Sanctuary Hills with my husband, Nate, and our infant son, Shaun. Nate was in the military and we got stationed here a few years before the bombs fell. I've never much cared for this cold weather. In fact, I hate it. My mother was Mexican. I'm originally from the Southwest. "

"Mexican?"

"The country below the U. S."

"…Oh."

"My parents named me Felina after the girl in the Marty Robbins song, _El Paso_ , but I don't hear much music like that in this part of the country."

"I've never heard of Marty Robbins."

"You've never heard Big Iron?" I asked

"No, is that a song?"

"Yeah, Marty Robbins did a lot of cowboy ballads. My mom had an acoustic guitar, and I tried to learn how to play those kinds of songs, but I never really mastered it."

Hancock let the legs of his chair fall back to the ground. "Can you still play?"

"I don't know. I haven't played since law school."

He snorted. "Law school, huh?"

"That's right."

"That's a pretty useless skill set nowadays. I can't imagine having so many laws in place that you had to attend school to learn them all…"

"And then I would get dressed up and argue about them in front of a judge."

Hancock motioned toward me. "That explains the three-piece suit."

"Do you like it?" I asked, holding my arms out.

"Pretty snazzy."

"Thanks. That means a lot coming from someone with your fashion sense."

He mocked a bow from his sitting position.

I continued. "This disheveled hair and these bags under my eyes were part of my look back then, too. I hate wearing make-up. So far, the lack of emphasis on appearances is my favorite part about this glamorous new life-style."

Hancock let out an amused grunt. "The people who care about looks still exist, trust me."

"So the heavy stuff." I sighed. "My husband being in the military bought us a position in the vault. We got there just in time. They didn't tell us that we were getting cryogenically frozen, but that's what they did to us. I had no concept of time and 200 years felt like 2 minutes. I woke up and saw the struggle of someone trying to take my baby from my husband's arms. When Nate wouldn't give him up, they shot him, but I was stuck in that frozen coffin and couldn't do anything to stop it. All I could do was watch. I fell back under again and when I finally escaped, they were gone – my son, the kidnappers and murders...

I had to pause for a moment to regroup. I had been pushing those memories out of my head as hard as I could for the past three months, and revisiting them was making the hairs on my arms stand up. "My husband and every other living soul in the vault were dead. My whole life was gone and I had nothing. But I didn't cry. That's never been my way. Instead, my sadness turned to burning anger. I wanted revenge so bad, I could taste blood."

"Wow," Hancock remarked. "I didn't really figure you for a revenge case."

I started absent-mindedly twisting the wedding ring on my finger. "I've been chasing after that man ever since I got free, and right before I came to your town, I found him. And I killed him. But it didn't really make me feel any better, and I still haven't got my son back. The Institute has him…I've got to find him…" I trailed off. "But then what?"

"Take him back to your home and give him a normal life." Hancock said, matter-of-factly.

"This is normal? Killing everyday, struggling to get by, farming dirt. Esta cañón. And how much time has passed by? Ten years? He doesn't even know me. We're practically strangers."

"You'd be saving him. From the Institute. Who knows what goes on there?"

"Shaun does."


	3. Sanctuary

The alarm on my pip-boy went off, and I awoke to the pre-war tune of _One More Tomorrow_ under a misty blue sunrise.

Hancock, groggy and spiddle-laden, began to stir in his sleeping bag only a couple feet away. "Did you sleep with that thing on your arm?"

"Well, yeah. I never take it off."

He grumbled something inaudible as he started to sit up. He had one hand on his sawed-off shotgun as he used his other to pull his face above the edge of the half wall we had shacked up next to. He peered over the top cautiously for a moment before turning to face me again. "You really shouldn't set the alarm on that thing when we're out in the middle of nowhere like this. You could have alerted someone – or something – to our presence before we're even conscious enough to do anything about it."

"That," I said with punctuation, "Is a very good point." I immediately disabled the alarm.

Hancock shook his head. "I don't know how you've survived this long." He reached for his hat and put it on. I remember thinking I was glad he did, because he looked like any other ghoul without it.

When _One More Tomorrow_ ended, Travis, the Diamond City Radio dj, started his news segment. "If you, uh, if you haven't been to Goodneighbor recently, like I certainly haven't, you might not know about the latest news there..."

He was a dreadful personality for the radio. He was always so awkward when he spoke, it made me uncomfortable to listen.

He continued. "You may have heard the name Bobbie No-Nose - which out of context sounds pretty funny - but, I mean, she's a ghoul, so it's actually sort of, y'know…literal. Anyway, there was talk, so I hear, that she was up to something. A 'heist' as they say. Something sort of big, I guess. Maybe. But, well, she sort of, uhhh, disappeared. No sign of her. And nothing has gone missing…"

There was an inorganic length of dead air, and then he began shouting away from the microphone. "This is a serious news story! Don't undercut yourself!"

"Jeez!" I said as I turned the radio off.

"So are we going to find that Virgil guy, today?" Hancock asked.

I looked around at the piles of loot we got off the raiders. We came to the camp with a ton of gear already, but now, there was an additional six sets of raider armor, three pipe pistols, two pipe rifles, a baseball bat, fuses, lightbulbs, a lantern, a few boxes of Abraxo cleaner, and more. I was an expert at looting. There's never a shortage of useful junk to lug back or shitty handmade weapons I can pawn. "Not today."

"Well, what then?"

"Today, we go to Sanctuary."

Hancock groaned, "You're serious about dragging all this junk back to your house?"

"Yep."

"Was everyone from your time a hoarder?"

"In a way. Everyone was constantly buying stuff they didn't need to 'keep up with the Jones's'"

He popped a mentat tablet in his mouth and dry swallowed. "That's depressing."

* * *

As we were traveling, we came upon two men wrestling in the distance. When we got closer, we could see that they were identical to each other, right down to the clothes. They were struggling with their hands on a pipe pistol and a knife on the ground a few feet away.

"Everyone, calm down!" I cried.

They didn't stop.

I drew my gun. "What's going on here?!"

"Shoot him!" one yelled. "He's an imposter!"

"No, he's the imposter! Shoot him!" the other one yelled.

I turned to Hancock. "Do you know them?"

He shrugged.

I turned back to the fight. "I don't know you, so how can I know which one is the imposter?"

One of them had the other by the hair and was kicking at him desperately. A swift kick to the groin made the other one release his grip on the gun and the one left holding it pushed it point blank to his doppleganger's temple. He rapidly pulled the trigger over and over, but it only made a clicking sound.

The other guy stretched a hand toward the knife on the ground. His fingertips grazed the handle and spun it a little closer to him. He grabbed it and slit the first guy's throat. Snatching the empty pistol off of the limp body, he stood up straight, sweeping his hands across his clothes and knocking the dirt loose.

I was totally confused. "What just happened?"

"This guy," he motioned toward the lifeless corpse, "was a synth sent by the Institute to replace me."

"Do you live somewhere around here?" I asked.

"I'm from Diamond City."

Hancock frowned. "You're a long way from home, stranger."

"I know. This asshole dragged me all the way out here to kill me."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "That doesn't make a whole lot of sense…"

Hancock was digging through his bag. "Here." He handed the guy some ammo and a couple bottles of water. "Be safe, alright?"

"Don't give him anything," I piped up. "We don't know this guy-"

"Chase," he said. "Name's Chase."

I ignored him. "We need these supplies for ourselves."

Chase took the stuff from Hancock and scampered off. "Thanks, guys."

Hancock looked at me, disappointed. "Don't be so selfish. A couple bullets and some water ain't gonna make that big of a difference for us, but it could mean life or death for that guy."

I wasn't paying him any mind as I dug around on the corpse. "Boy, these gen 3's are extremely lifelike."

"What are you doing?" Hancock asked as I stuck my pocket knife into the back of the guy's neck. "That's fucked up, Felina!"

"No, look here," I said, pulling a finger out of the incision I made. "If this guy was a synth, he'd have a synth component right here, but he doesn't. That guy you just gave our supplies to was the synth."

Hancock's expression changed from disgust to regret. "Shit."

"You know, I went to Diamond City once. They are so paranoid about the Institute, I saw a guy get gunned down in the street by security when he thought his brother was replaced by a synth and was holding him at gunpoint."

Hancock nodded. "Yeah. That sort of thing happens all the time. It's the only thing Diamond City and Goodneighbor can agree on"

"Why does the Institute replace people with synths, anyhow?"

"For fun," he said as he lit a cigarette. "I imagine it's their only form of entertainment – watching us little folks up here suffer and turn on each other like that. They probably watch the whole thing on a monitor from the safety of their mysterious, hidden bunker and laugh at our misfortune."

"That sounds a little obtuse for an organization with that kind of technology."

"Well, they may have a more formal reason, say to spy on us, but it still ain't a very good explanation for why they do what they do. They have never tried to peacefully make contact with us or given us any reason to trust them, so I wouldn't put it past them."

"I just wish I could understand…There's got to be a reason for it."

"Maybe, but I guarantee you it ain't for our benefit. Only theirs."

* * *

We traveled without breaking, arriving at Sanctuary just before dusk. There was still enough sunlight to see us clearly as we crossed the bridge into town. The elevated guardposts at the entrance were only manned by one settler back then, since we were still a young settlement and we hadn't registered on any raider outfits' radars yet . The guard had his assault rifle raised toward us as we approached. I waved and shouted at him. "Dick! It's me! Put that away before you hurt someone!"

He lowered his gun. "Jesus, you need to be more careful! I saw a ghoul coming and almost popped one off."

"Yeah, go ahead and try, you racist bastard!" Hancock taunted him. He turned to me and hissed, "What the fuck did you get me into?"

"It's cool, Hancock. He just wasn't expecting you. No one here has anything against ghouls."

He laced his fingers behind his head. "Maybe I should walk into to town like this to be sure."

"Hancock-"

"Or do you have a sack I could put over my face?"

I stopped dead in my tracks. "I can't tell if you're joking or not."

"For fuck's sake." He motioned with both arms flippantly. "Lead the way, please, so I don't get shot."

"Now hold on a second. It would be hypocritical of you to judge my entire town based on the greeting you got at the gate. There's a reason we assigned Brandon to the guardpost."

"Who's Brandon?"

"The guard. At the entrance."

"I thought you just called him Dick?"

"I did." I resumed walking. "Everyone does. We call him that because he is one."

Hancock's frown evened out like he wanted to smile, but he didn't dare. "Ok, I'll give you that one. But is that really the first impression you want to give people of your town when they arrive?"

"Are you kidding me? What about that pendejo that met me at the gates of Goodneighbor?"

"Who, Finn? I took care of him, didn't I?"

"I suppose you did." I unconsciously started to grin.

We continued toward the town square. As we rounded the curve in the road, the heart of the settlement came into view. I could feel the tension let up a little as Hancock surveyed my neighborhood.

"Hey, this is better than I expected from a vault dweller starting from scratch. You built this?"

"Well. Not by myself, of course. I've mostly been delegating tasks, and bringing them raw materials and salvage. The settlers, mainly Sturges, do all the construction based on the plans I give them."

There were eleven of us at that time. Through diligence and teamwork, we had restored Sanctuary Hills to its former glory, sorta. The original buildings were sufficiently intact, repaired, patched, and even painted, except for a few that we completely demolished down to the foundation. We had used everything we could find in the vicinity, which served double purpose, meaning there was no unsightly garbage lying around. For a touch of charm, young mutfruit trees lined the swept streets and lanterns were strung across, illuminating the path.

I had laid roots in my pre-war home with the settlers taking up residence in the surrounding houses. The house directly across the street was the town workshop, humming and aglow with the plethora of projects Sturges was supervising. He was a sort of jack-of-all-trades. He had the build of a construction worker and the mind of an analyst. Without his expertise, none of this would have been possible.

Behind the workshop we had an organized, fenced-in farm that stretched to the river bank where we had erected the largest water purifier we knew how to construct. A row of windmills towered over the barn where we kept the two headed cattle known as brahmin. In the center of the cove, small shops circled around the massive, centuries-old, bare limbed tree trunk. On the lot north of the workshop, we had built a well-stocked tavern, complete with a patio, juke box, and pool table.

"You have a real vision, sister."

"This was my home before the war. My inspiration is based on mismanaged sentiments, not creativity." I shrugged it off. "Let's drop all this stuff off at the workshop so we can get settled in."

We turned all our scrap loot over to Sturges so he and a few others could sort through it. Dogmeat, the resident German shepherd, greeted us as we exited the workshop, and Hancock scooped down to pet him. The puppy-like rascal dove into the dirt and flipped over so he could have his belly rubbed, and Hancock cheerfully obliged.

Next, I led Hancock to my home. The inside of my house contrasted with the rest of the semi-polished look of the work-in-progress town. The front room of the house had an open floor plan, and I had arranged it the way I had it before the Great War. I had added a wood-burning stove to the kitchen area, but most of the furniture was original, and a lot of it wasn't functional.

I took Hancock to Shaun's room. I had various things stored in and on Shaun's baby crib, which was sloppily shoved most of the way into a closet with the detached door propped against it. Scraps of fabric and weathered flags hung over the windows. I had a twin bed with a worn out mattress where the crib once stood. "You can have this room as long as we are traveling together. Sorry there's not a real bed."

Hancock lightly kicked the frame with the toe of his boot. "Looks real to me. Am I hallucinating?"

"No, I'm apologizing for its quality. I plan on having better mattresses, pillows, and comforters in all of these houses eventually. Improved sleeping situations are one of the old world luxuries that I've decided to prioritize."

"One of? What others make that list?" He seemed genuinely interested.

"Honestly? It's not going to be as easily accomplished as luxury beds, but I aspire to one day have fully functional plumbing. Of course a working toilet is great, but what I really want is a nice hot shower."

Hancock snickered to himself at this. It was unclear to me if it was because he thought it was a ridiculous notion or if I had conjured up an image of me bathing, and he was imagining me naked. Both seemed equally plausible.

I scrambled to change the subject. "Regardless, I don't plan on staying here more than one night. I'd like to get a good night's rest and tomorrow, I'll see if my power armor needs any repairs. If all is well, we'll head to the Glowing Sea. How does that sit with you?"

He rubbed his chin. "No complaints here. I ain't much for sleeping at the moment, given the combination of 'supplements' I'm on, today, though, so don't wait up for me. I'm gonna kill some time in the tavern."

I was a little disappointed, but I tried to conceal it. "Fine. Would you mind sending Preston over if he's there?"

He smiled deviously. "Booty call?"

"No! I have something to discuss with him." Thinking about his silly grin when I mentioned the shower, I remarked, "Can you refrain from putting everything in a sexual context?"

He raised one hand like a boy scout. "Okay, so you're a good girl. Got it. Which one is Preston?"

"The guy I had with me when I arrived in Goodneighbor."

"Oh, right. The guy in the Minutemen gear. I didn't think they had much of a presence around here anymore. So you roll with the Minutemen?"

"You're looking at their new general," I said with a smirk.

"That's good to know."

* * *

Despite being safe at home, the sleep was the same as any other in the wastes. Images from my past and pangs of missing Nate and Sean kept me from sleeping well. Every time I started to doze off, I would dream about them and wake up shivering. I liked to believe that the episodes were getting further apart, but it was hard to tell in the deepest part of the New England winter. All I could do was try to lull myself back to sleep with thoughts of better blankets and springtime on the horizon…

…

I left Felina and went across the street. When I entered the tavern, it got eerily quiet. Having been a ghoul for years, you'd think I'd be used to that by now, but I'd spent most of that time as mayor of Goodneighbor, and I was really more accustomed to being greeted with respect. I don't let these things get to me, though.

I saw a jukebox in the corner and made my way over to it. It had a coin slot for prewar money, but the door was removed off the cash box, exposing a pile of coins. I grabbed a couple to slip into the slot and they made a _tink ta-tink_ as they fell down the juke box's internal corridors back to their original resting place. I selected the first song that caught my eye – _Butcher Pete_.

The bartender was a scruffy-looking guy in a stained tuxedo. I eased onto the stool in front of him and extended my hand. "Hi. John Hancock. And you?"

He didn't accept my handshake. "I know who you are."

"Is there a problem, friend?"

"Not if I can help it…"

"Rocko!" Preston came up beside me and leaned on the bar. "Hancock is an associate of Felina's. Whatever he wants is on the house."

I grinned. "Rocko, huh? I'd like to see a chem menu…"

He gave me a disgusted look. "We don't have one of those."

Of course they didn't. I was just fucking with him. "Well then, a double bourbon on the rocks." I turned away from the humorless bartender. "Thanks. Preston, right?"

He heartily shook my hand. "That's right. Preston Garvey. Sorry I didn't get to properly introduce myself back in Goodneighbor."

"No worries. So this is Sanctuary, huh? It's very well put together. Is this the main base of the new Minutemen?"

"For the time being. It's far enough out of the way to keep us from getting attacked regularly, which is good while we're trying to rebuild our forces, but eventually, we'll need a more central location."

Rocko slid my drink to me from across the bar, and I caught it without looking. "Hey, man, I can respect that. You keep building your numbers and the centralization problem will work itself out." I swirled the ice around in my glass and took a sip.

"Hopefully. But Felina wants to keep Sanctuary a safe place for families, so by the time we get that big we're still going to need a different base."

I narrowed my eyes in thought. "I could see that. Something a little more fortified, too."

Preston smiled. "Exactly. I already have an idea in mind for that when the time is right."

I put an arm around his shoulder. "Well, good for you. I'd love to see the renaissance of the Minutemen. The Commonwealth needs all the help it can get defending itself against the Institute."

"Don't get me started. They're not the only threat around here, though."

"Yeah, but they're the bulk of it." I threw back the rest of my double and motioned to Rocko for another. "So Felina is the brains behind the new Minutemen?"

"You could say that. She's a lot of the brawn, too, right now."

"Good. I like hearing confirmation that I'm throwing in with the right crowd. I rarely second guess myself, but Sanctuary doesn't seem very tolerant of ghouls." I motioned toward him with my glass. "Present company excluded."

"We don't see many ghouls out this way, but the people here will come around. Especially if you have Felina's endorsement."

"You know exactly what I want to hear," I said with a pat to his back. I pulled an ashtray closer and lit a cigarette. "By the way, Felina wanted me to tell you she requests your presence across the street…" I blew a cloud of smoke across the bar. "What's going on there?"

"Oh, just Minutemen briefing. When she's been out in the Commonwealth without me, I get reports on settlements she assisted and give her the location of new settlements that we could recruit or help out." He raised an eyebrow. "Why do you ask?"

"Just trying to get a handle on the kind of relationship you two have."

"Hancock," he said, the pleasantness fading from his face. "I know we've only just met, but your reputation precedes you. I respect you and what you've done with Goodneighbor, but I feel compelled to remind you that Felina is recently widowed."

"Whoa, hey, I know that."

"Keep it in your pants or you'll have to answer to me, understand?"

"Give me a little more credit than that, Preston. I ain't a monster. She and I have similar goals – improving the quality of life for humanity, causing trouble for the Institute, finding creative and constructive uses for violence... I don't have to screw _everything_ that breathes. I have a few scruples."

"Just don't lose sight of your 'goals' then and there shouldn't be a problem." He headed toward the exit. "Anyway, you've got my support as long as I've got your word. Goodnight, Hancock."

"Later, Preston." That was a little awkward. I finished drink number two and waved at Rocko. "Keep 'em coming."

"Should I just leave the bottle?" He said with the tiniest impression of sarcasm.

"Well, that depends." I reached into my pocket and pulled out an inhaler of jet. "What's your policy on these if I brought my own?"

He shook his head. "We have children in this town."

"Yeah, but I don't see any children in this bar."

He leaned forward on the counter until he was inches away from my face. "We could skip all of this and I could just bounce you right now." He pointed a thumb behind him. "You can go sit in an alley somewhere being a cheeky cunt there while you do all the chems you want."

"Point taken." I put the jet back in my pocket. "Just leave the bottle then." He rolled his eyes before turning to get the whole fifth from the shelf. When his back was to me, I swallowed three or four mentats. _Fucker._

* * *

I staggered out of the bar a little before sun up. I'd had a bit too much to drink, and possibly a few too many mentats, so I was wildly uncoordinated, but very much awake. I could tell by the way my jaw was locking up and my teeth were grinding that there was no way I was getting any sleep at that point.

An old woman dressed in colorful bohemian clothes called to me from the porch of the house next door.

"You! Come over here." She waved me over from her seat in an armchair.

I stumbled over in her general direction. My foot slipped on the step up, but I caught myself on the railing with one hand. I reached my other out to the woman. "Mayor Hancock. How can I help you?"

She took my hand in hers and spoke slowly and deliberately. "I already know you. I've seen you in a vision. I knew you would come with Felina."

 _Did I hear that right?_ "In a vision?"

"That's right, kid. I got the Sight. Only problem is I need jet right now to use it. If anyone can help me with that, I know it's you."

I smiled. "You'd be correct, sister." I gave her an inhaler from my coat pocket.

She pushed the canister in and inhaled with the grace of an expert. "Now just wait for the jet to take me where the Sight wants to go, and I can tell you what I see."

"Oh, that's alright. I don't really need –"

Her head fell backwards and a horrible rumbling breath came out of her chest. I lunged forward and grabbed her shoulders. "Shit! Are you alright?"

"Oh, I'm fine," she rattled. "Makes everything feel good, doesn't it?"

"Uh, yeah…"

Her eyes rolled back into her skull. "She's not going to get what she wants."

I let go of her and took a step back. "What?"

"It didn't come easy for you to find the high road, but it's even harder for her. You both let loss be your guide…I see…a lighthouse. She's vulnerable, and there's a great deal of other hands in the pot. You could be her beacon, if you stop running."

"That…was a bit cryptic. Too many metaphors for me to keep up with."

"I can always clarify it better if you keep bringing me chems, John."

I took a couple more steps away. Of all the things she had said to me, the sound of being called John when I hadn't even told her that was my name is what sent shivers up my spine. "I gotta go."

"I'll be here."

I booked it across the street to Felina's house as best as I could in my state. Once I was inside, I leaned against the closed door and tried to shake off the feeling of dread that woman gave me. No one calls me John.

After a few moments, my mind started wandering to Felina. I instinctively went down the hall. The house only had two bedrooms, so if mine was the one to the right that meant Felina had to be asleep in the one to the left. I cautiously took a step into her room. Felina was sprawled out only half covered by her blanket and barely dressed. Of course she still had her pip-boy on.

I inched closer like a sailor being drawn to a siren. Her face looked more serene than I had seen while she was awake, and my eyes began to follow her chest in a thin tank top, rising and falling as she lightly snored.

A draft snuck through the precarious 200 year-old boards of the wall and she began to shiver. I carefully spread her blanket across her. She let out a satisfied moan and resumed the slow, rhythmic breaths of slumber. She was beautiful, and I could have stayed there and watched her sleep for hours, but I suddenly realized how creepy that was and backed out into the hallway.

I made my way to the kitchen and looked through her cabinets. All the usual 200 year old crap was there – Cram, Blamco mac n cheese, pork n beans, Sugar Bombs. _Does she really eat this junk? Poor girl._

I opened the fridge and a dim light came on inside. It was barely cool at all. There were a few bottles of Nuka Cola, a couple tatos, and an assload of mirelurk eggs. I wasn't actually hungry, but the sight of all those eggs gave me an idea.

I warmed up a pan on the stove while I tried to crack an egg into a mixing bowl. In my drunken haze, I did a poor job and had to tediously pick all the shell pieces out by hand. I had no problem slicing the Cram into paper thin strips, though. I'm quite adept with a knife and muscle memory took over for that one. I fumbled around with a coffee pot until I was satisfied that it was brewing something. The food wasn't in the skillet long before the house began to fill with the delicious smell.

Soon after, I could hear Felina stirring in the hallway. She was impressed with the meal I had thrown together. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but she did. The way she gushed over it made me a little smug as we sat down to eat.

"What is that intoxicating aroma?" she asked.

My lips curled into a knowing smile. "Scrambled eggs and fried Cram."

"Goddamn. Who knew Cram actually smelled appetizing if you fried it?"

"I did."

She sat down at the table with a cup of coffee. "So what inspired you to play chef?"

I set a couple plates on the table and served food onto them. "Well, I was up early…or late, whatever. And I noticed you have a disturbing amount of mirelurk eggs…"

"The tunnel thing."

"Yeah, I figured." I dove into my food. "So, I got to know some of the townspeople last night, and it seems you and I have something in common."

"What's that?" She asked between bites.

"This community really looks up to you. I guess you could say we're both political figureheads."

"I wouldn't say that."

"Why not?"

She placed her fork on the side of the plate and looked at me with austerity. "Because a figurehead doesn't actually do anything. It's implies the act of symbolically holding a position of power, but just standing by and doing nothing." She picked her fork back up. "That's not how you view yourself, is it?"

"Alright, college girl. No, that's not how I view myself." She had no way of knowing, but she had hit a sore spot with me. "You know what I meant."

"So what do you do for Goodneighbor, then?"

"I offer them protection, guidance, and hope. All of that is very important to a sense of safety and togetherness." I resumed eating as well. "I mean, what do _you_ do besides personally recruiting folks for the Minutemen, physically building settlements, providing them with resources, and protecting them from the mutated creatures of the wasteland?" I asked facetiously.

She stopped mid chewing. With food in her mouth, she let out a muffled and confused, "What?" Then realization spread across her face and she laughed. "Oh, I'm not that important. I'm just helping them get started. The people I recruit do all that stuff, too. Soon, they won't even need me."

"Oh, quit being modest. You know the Minutemen were practically wiped out before you came along."

She sneered. "And what about you? Where would Goodneighbor be today if you had never become their fearless leader?"

I thought back to the way people were struggling, dying in the streets, and being pushed around and killed by the previous leader before we stood up to him. "Sure, I started the uprising, and afterwards, everyone just looked to me to lead them. I didn't really ask to be in charge, but it seemed like the right thing to do, so I did it."

"So you don't want to be the mayor?"

"Sometimes, no. It's a lot of responsibility. But when I really think about it, I wouldn't have it any other way."

"That's why I like you," she said, pointing her fork at me. "I could tell right away that you were someone who could get shit done – the kinds of shit no one else is willing to step up and do. There are never enough people around willing to make that sacrifice." She made a circular motion. "And that's how things got so screwed up in the first place. The world needs more John Hancocks."

This girl, she fucking gets it. "A few more Felinas couldn't hurt, either," I said with a smile. "I think I'll make that my campaign slogan when I run for governor. 'A Felina in every settlement and a Hancock in every bed'."

"That's sure to get you elected by a landslide! Do you really think you could keep a promise like that, though?" She asked playfully.

"It will all depend on if you could keep up your end of things. My end is a given, with or without anyone's votes."

She laughed. "It's no wonder you became a politician. You got my vote."

_Did she just flirt with me?_


	4. On the Road

We took inventory of our supplies and headed to my makeshift shed out back where I kept my solitary set of T-45 power armor. This was going to work perfectly. The towering, metal, full-body suit of modern day knight's armor would protect me from the radiation from the Glowing Sea, and Hancock? He'd be more than fine. Radiation actually heals ghouls.

Hancock gazed at it, narrow-eyed. "Out of curiosity, did you get this from the Brotherhood of Steel?"

"What's the Brotherhood of Steel?"

"I'll take that as a no."

I continued to stand there, reluctantly.

"So what's the problem? Get in and let's get going."

"I just feel so stifled when I'm in this thing. And it's such a long trip on foot," I groaned.

"Believe me, you'll be glad you have it once ya get there." Hancock crossed his arms. "Besides, maybe you'll finally be able to keep up with me in that thing."

"Oh, shut up."

We walked. And walked. And walked. In the back of my mind, I was fantasizing about having a car again. All the while, Hancock and I were getting to know each other between fending off mutated creatures and storming raider camps. He had as many questions about the prewar Commonwealth as I did about the present. He was so laid back and easy to talk to, I felt like I had known him for years.

He was right about the power armor, though. The journey into the Glowing Sea was much deeper than I initially thought it would be and would have been damn near impossible without the T-45 suit. There were more deathclaws and nasty, overgrown insects than I had anticipated, and there was nowhere safe enough to rest. We traveled for more than 24 hours straight.

When we finally found Virgil, it didn't come as much of a surprise that he was himself a super mutant, since he had taken up residence in a cave in the heart of the Glowing Sea. It was just strange that even though he looked like the barbaric, muscular super mutants that bombarded me with machine gun bullets and primitive melee weapons in the streets outside Goodneighbor, he was as well-spoken and refined as one would expect a scientist to be. He agreed to help me get inside the Institute if I helped him in return by finding an anti-mutagen serum he left in his lab there, so he could become human again.

He advised us to go to the Commonwealth Institute of Technology and track down an Institute courser. A courser, he explained, is a gen 3 synth that the Institute sends to reclaim other synths that escape. They look and function exactly like a flesh and blood human, but they are extremely dangerous. We would need to kill it, remove the chip it uses to teleport, and have it decoded, since teleportation is the only way in and out of the Institute.

Sure. No problem.

Our business with Virgil was pretty brief considering how far we had to come, but at least he let us stay the night before heading out. The next morning, the journey away from the Sea still felt just as long as the journey in, despite knowing where we were going this time around. Now I was fantasizing about a phone so I could have just called Virgil instead of making this long trek. Especially since we were going to have to make it again once I had hunted down the courser.

One good thing about power armor, its technology makes you feel weightless somehow, even when carrying more gear than you normally would, but I still felt stifled. It greatly reduced my range of motion.

Once we were outside the high levels of radiation, I turned to Hancock. "Is there any chance you want to wear this thing for a little while?" I asked in the far away, tinny voice that comes through the helmet.

"You're doing great. Try not to actively think about it, and it will feel natural after a while."

"Are you telling me this from experience?"

"Not with power armor, no."

I started to ask him what he meant by that, but it dawned on me before the words left my mouth – chems, of course. "So what cocktail are you on today?"

"A couple mentats and a buffout. Why, you want some?"

"No." I replied automatically. The conversation fell off for a while and I started focusing on the rhythm our footsteps were making, beating the ground and shuffling through the dead brush. I hummed a little to the beat, fascinated by the hollowness of its sound inside the power armor.

Hancock had been stewing on the conversation I had abandoned. "Did you ever do any chems recreationally, here or in your previous life?"

I was kind of flattered the way he referred to my past as a previous life, much in the same way I viewed it. It meant he had been paying attention when I talked about it. "Well, not really. I liked pain pills, but I only ever took them when I had a prescription. Let's see…I was pretty dependent on caffeine…"

"Doesn't count."

"Ok…I smoked some weed in college, but I didn't really like it."

"Weed?" He raised an eyebrow.

I guess marijuana didn't survive the bombs. "Oh! I did exceptionally enjoy the cough syrup I got from the doctor for strep throat."

"Ooh, tell me about the cough syrup."

"It gave me a euphoric feeling, and everything felt slow and wonderful." I lifted my arms outward from my body in demonstration, as though imitating an airplane the way a child would, taking long, deliberate steps that clamored loudly from the weight of my armor. "It made me want to talk a lot, but not in a fast, chattery way. It made cigarettes extra enjoyable, too, so I would chain smoke."

With reliving the memory as a mental cue, I tossed him my helmet and thoughtlessly lit a cigarette. "Which, in retrospect, kinda negates the purpose of drinking cough syrup in the first place, I suppose." My hair was flattened to my head from being pressed down by the armor all day. As I shook it loose to regain some volume, I noticed Hancock watching me. "Then, when I went to sleep, I would wake up every so often with a really gooood itch."

He chuckled. "I know that itch. If you liked that, you'd probably like med-x or jet."

"Yeah, thanks for the tip." I replied sarcastically.

"Well, you mentioned before that you sell chems, so you obviously have some moral flexibility. So why are you so adamant about not doing them, yourself?"

"Please, I have enough problems as it is keeping plenty of food and ammo on hand without having to worry about where I'm going to get my next fix."

"But you smoke."

I puffed out a cloud of smoke right then. "For some reason, I never have any trouble finding cigarettes. They're every-fucking-where."

"I could teach you how to make jet, sometime. It's not hard."

"That's ok." I thumped the cigarette butt away.

Hancock tossed my helmet back to me, which caught me off guard. "At the very least, it would be useful for making a few extra caps." Hancock was being almost annoying with his persistence.

"I'll think about it." I checked the position of the sun in the sky before replacing the helmet. "Only a couple more hours of daylight."

"Want to start looking for a good place to camp?"

"Not yet. If we keep heading this way, we should make it to a settlement Preston told me about, and we can just stay there."

Hancock shrugged. "If you say so."

We picked up the pace a little for good measure, but the sun disappeared over the horizon and still no settlement was anywhere to be found.

I stopped and pulled up the map on my pip-boy. "We should have been there by now. I haven't seen any signs of life for miles." At this moment, I was glad that my face was hidden behind a helmet so he couldn't see how uneasy I was about our situation. "We'll just have to set up a camp in the dark."

"Yeah, that kinda sucks. We have no idea what's around us now."

"Well, obviously not the settlement, or we would see light coming from it. On the upside, absence of lights means no raider camps either." It was exceptionally dark for dusk with a low blanket of dismal clouds stretched across the sky.

The last straggling glows of twilight made Hancock's expression of disapproval just barely visible. "Just because you can't see any light doesn't mean danger ain't out there."

"Well, what do you suggest?"

"I suggest you and I just share some psycho and travel through another night. I do my best work after dark anyway."

I shook my head as vigorously as the armor would allow. "No way. We'll just camp here. We won't make a fire so as not to attract unwanted attention, and we'll just hide among the brush. I've been up way too long as it is, and I really need to stop for a while."

" _That_ sounds like a terrible idea."

"Ok, we'll sleep in shifts. I can't sleep in this power armor, so when it's your shift, you can wear it."

"First off, I don't want to wear that suit and be mistaken for a member of the Brotherhood of Fascists. Sleep is way more important to you than me, so I'll tell you what. I'll just stand guard all night. You can take that suit off and sleep all night, but that still leaves one problem."

"What's that?" I asked.

"Without a fire or any shelter, we're going to be pretty damn cold."

I looked up at the starless night sky, wondering if a storm was coming. "I'll be fine. Don't worry about me. However, I don't want _you_ attempting to stay up all night again. You'll be worthless in the morning."

He smirked. "Nah, I'll be fine. Don't _you_ worry about _me_."

"No, really. Maybe after a nap, I'll feel like continuing on, so wake me up in a while." I exited the power armor near a large tree trunk in hopes it would be less visible that way. As soon as the casing separated, the chill of the wind struck me like so many knives, and I momentarily regretted all of this. Without meaning to, I shivered audibly.

Hancock had to comment. "See? What did I tell ya? You were all huddled up in that armor and forgot what January felt like."

Still shivering, I couldn't think of a response. In all fairness, this night was particularly cold.

I curled up in my meager blanket in the fetal position in the brush, and Hancock slumped down against the tree's roots, casually taking a hit of psycho. His eyes glazed over a bit, and his gaze rested on me.

After what felt like ages, I was still shaking from the cold with my eyes shut tight, trying to get past it. Slowly and cautiously, I could hear Hancock make his way over to me and then put his arms around me. His natural body temperature was warmer than mine, and I was so cold, it didn't really matter to me at that moment that he was a ghoul.

It had been a long time since I had been held, and after everything I had been through, it felt really nice. I started to get overwhelmed by the gesture and a flood of emotions washed over me. I let out an involuntary sob, and in reaction, Hancock held me closer. I silently cried, trying to hide it. Exhausted from fighting the tears, it didn't take long for me to fall asleep.

* * *

I felt his warm embrace all night. Much like the slumber I got from the euphoric cough syrup I had described to him before, I drifted in and out of a consciousness throughout the early morning hours. Every time I slightly awoke, I would do my best to pretend to still be asleep. Despite how awkward this was going to be in the morning, I was enjoying it.

"Hey, Felina."

The gravel in his voice was perfectly controlled, and when he wanted it to, it poured warm and placid out of his mouth like a soothing melody. I could tell that the dawn had begun, even through closed eyelids. When I finally opened them, his face came closely into focus. I smiled self-consciously. "Uh, hey there."

"Rise and shine, sweetie. I have something to tell you." He slid his arms away from me.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. "Did you make breakfast?" I asked hopefully.

"I'm afraid not."

As my vision sharpened, I started to look around. "Where's my power armor?"

"Yeah, it looks like it was stolen."

"¡Hijo de…! ¡¿Cual es tu pinche pedo?! ¡La cagaste bien cagada! ¿Ahora, qué chingados hago?"

"I'm sure I deserved that, whatever that was..."

"How could y-… you didn't even try to wake me up!"

"Well, under normal circumstances, I would have stayed awake all night, but I got unexpectedly…comfortable…Anyway, the short version is I fell asleep."

Still on the ground, I drew my knees close and just stared down intently at my boots. Though I am usually good at problem solving, or at the very least decision making, no immediate solution came to mind.

Hancock broke the silence. "Look on the bright side. Whoever stole it decided to leave us with our lives, so things ain't as bad as they could be. It's daylight now. The sun is out. I've had an uncharacteristically and unlikely good night's sleep. Let's just start looking for that settlement that eluded us last night and maybe we'll find your suit in the process."

Still staring at my boots, I let out a defeated, "Ok."

* * *

After searching nearly all day, we found no sign of the power armor and only signs of a failed attempt at a settlement with half built structures, dead crops, and a couple freshly filled graves. If I had to guess, the people who founded this homestead didn't take into account how close they were to the Glowing Sea and either succumbed to radiation poisoning or were largely unprepared for the frequency of deathclaws and other predator attacks.

I took it kind of hard at first, blaming myself for not coming sooner, but Hancock talked me through the only logical timetable and, using clues from what we could observe, made me realize it was already too late by the time Preston had even heard of them. With the weight of our discoveries hanging over us and my power armor gone, we decided to head back to Sanctuary and regroup.

Several miles later, I was leading the way with Hancock a few steps behind. I could sense that he was staring at my backside, and I became overly aware of the swing of my hips as I walked.

"Hancock,"

"Yes?"

"…Nevermind."

"No, what's on your mind?"

"Forget it." I thought better of it.

He thumped the ashes from a square. "Well, for a brief moment there, I thought you were going to bring up our questionable sleeping arrangements from last night."

I paused before speaking. "Yeah, that was kind of forward of you."

"If you think I'm being too familiar, you can say so, but I assure you, I wasn't coming on to you."

 _Is he being serious?_ "Well, given your reputation, I'm sure you could see why I might have believed you were."

"My reputation? You've been out of the vault five minutes, and you're gonna tell me about my reputation?"

"Now wait a minute-"

"Look, I'm just busting your balls." He flicked his spent cigarette butt forcefully to the ground. "I understand. You're right for having your guard up, too, with the state of the world the way it is. But you can trust me. I respect you too much to violate you."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"As was intended. As a rule, I don't sleep with anyone I care about or deal with professionally. In my experience, it doesn't end well."

I tossed the words around in my head, trying to find the polite way of asking, but there just wasn't one. "So there's not anything between you and Fahrenheit? I mean, the way she talked about you, you two seemed awfully close."

"Me and Fahrenheit, no. I ain't really her type, if you know what I mean." His eyes lit up with amusement. "You trying to find out if I'm spoken for?"

"That wasn't specifically what I was going for." I mumbled.

"Well, I'm not. The groupies that hang around the State House mean nothing. They're mostly gold-digging sluts trying to cozy up to the mayor, which is why I can't take them seriously, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve to have a good time. I know I do, so everyone wins. So, why buy the brahmin when you can get the milk for free?"

"That's a pretty flimsy excuse to keep anyone from getting too close. But hey, can't get hurt if you don't let anyone in, I suppose."

"Correct." He said in a resentful tone.

"And, what, the reverse stands true, too, right?" I don't know why I kept jabbing at him. "Scared you're going to hurt someone with your 'party boy' persona?"

He stopped dead in his tracks and glared at me like he had something he wanted to say, but after a long pause, his only reply was, "Exactly."

…

When we started moving again, Felina felt compelled to apologize to me.

I insisted it wasn't necessary. "I don't care that you said what you said. Hell, I respect the way you speak your mind. I think I'm just pissed that you figured me out so fast."

* * *

Further down the road, we came upon a couple armed traders shouting at some people holed up in a small building. The sign said "Drumlin Diner."

"We had a deal, Trudy. Hand over the goods. You owe us."

A woman's voice called out from inside the diner, "I ain't giving you poison-shilling chem pushers anything! Do you know what that junk has done to my boy?"

The two traders exchanged a smug look with each other. "He bought them fair and square, Trudy. Ain't our fault if he's strung out. Now don't make me come in there and shoot up that trading post of yours."

Felina glanced over at me. "Come on. Let's see what this is about."

As we approached the two people with their guns drawn on the diner, they got anxious, swinging their barrels in our direction. "Whoa, whoa! Easy there, scavver. This doesn't involve you."

Felina patted the rifle hanging at her side. "You stop waving that gun in my face or it's gonna involve me."

_Nice._

The loudmouth of the two lowered his gun with curiosity. "Okay, stranger. We'll lower our weapons, alright? For now."

"What's going on here?" she asked him.

"It's a simple business dispute, got it? Trudy is sitting on a pile of goods that she owes me. I tried reasoning with her, but it looks like I gotta take what's mine by force," he said, motioning toward his gun. "Wanna make some easy money? Help me out. I could use another gun. Or maybe you think _you_ could talk some sense into her?"

"Maybe," she said with confidence. "I'm going to need some more details, though."

"You can call me Wolfgang. My associate here is Simone. See that diner right in front of us? Trudy owns the place. She's converted it into a small shop. I sell her chems, she gives me caps and parts I need. And when her son Patrick had his eighteenth birthday, I might have sold him some jet. Then some more. Then a lot more. Now he's in debt."

"You're a chem dealer," I said. "You had to have known that this is where you'd end up by selling to that kid."

"Yeah, well hindsight is a bitch," he replied.

"I'll talk to her," Felina told him. "Maybe we can work this out."

"Appreciate it," Wolfgang said as we headed toward the diner. "If things go sideways, we'll back you up." Once Felina's back was to him, I noticed his eyes following the graceful bounce of her ass. I shot him a warning look, and he smirked.

"I don't trust that guy," I whispered to Felina as we neared the door.

"Why not? Don't you deal with chem pushers pretty regularly?"

"Yeah, so you could call me an authority on the subject."

"Point taken. I'd still like to at least try to settle this without bloodshed."

"Fair enough."

Trudy had her gun drawn on us as we entered. "I saw you and that poison-seller talking. Well he ain't getting his money. Period."

Felina raised an eyebrow at her. "So you agree it's his money? Then why not pay him?"

"He got my boy hooked on jet. Sold him a bunch of junk on _credit_ and now he expects me to pay him off. That bastard ain't getting a single damn cap from me."

The corners of Felina's mouth drew downward. "I really don't mind trying to mediate for you guys, but I'd appreciate it if I didn't have a gun pointed in my face while I do."

Trudy sighed and lowered her weapon.

"Thank you." Felina exhaled. "Now, didn't you have some kind of symbiotic relationship before this?"

Trudy scrunched her face up. "What?"

"Trading. Didn't you guys trade with each other regularly?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, you're pretty far away from any major towns. How often do other traders come out this way? If you just pay them, then this will be over. Everyone walks away without getting hurt and you can still trade with him."

"Yeah, that's a pretty good point." Trudy leaned on the counter with one hand and looked down for a moment of thought. "But I can't have that bastard selling any more jet to my boy."

"He's not a boy. He's eighteen and grown. That might be kind of hard to guarantee, but I'm sure if you square up the debt with him, you can arrange for him not to issue anymore credit to Patrick."

Trudy heaved another heavy sigh. "Alright, I'll pay." She called out the window. "You hear that Wolfgang? You'll get your damn money, but I better not catch you giving chems to my boy again!"

"Fine by me, Trudy!" came the reply from outside. "Your son's broke as shit anyhow!" Felina and I returned to Wolfgang, and he handed her some caps. "Alright, crisis is over," he said to us. "If you're here to trade, step up to the counter."

"No thanks," Felina half-frowned, stepping away to count the caps. "The holes in my pockets aren't that big."

I raised a hand. "I'll take a look at your wares."

While Wolfgang was cycling through his chems for sale, I kept an eye on Felina. She had moved behind him, sitting on the curb at an arm's length away from the trader's bags. As I was purchasing some mentats and med-x, I could see her carefully scooping ammunition from Wolfgang's bag to her own every time Simone looked away. She was cutting it close. I locked eyes with her in a plea for her to stop and she got the point. I wrapped up my transaction and got the hell out of there with Felina close behind.

Once we were far enough away from the incident, I grabbed her by the shoulder. "What were you thinking, Felina?"

"What? The ammo? You said so yourself, that guy was sketchy. He was an asshole…"

"That doesn't mean we should steal from him," I asserted.

"Hey, I was being careful."

"That's not what I meant," I said as I let go of her. "That ain't who we are."

Her eyebrows rose. "We?"

I was hoping she didn't catch that. I stayed on point. "Being an asshole ain't a crime, and stealing is pretty fucking low, okay?"

Her eyes sank to the ground. "You're right. It was a mistake." She looked back up at me and smiled. "That's not who _we_ are."

Now she was mocking me, the little minx. "Damn right, sister."


	5. The Minutemen's Work

The days were gradually getting longer and the nights a little warmer. Before I knew it, March was half over. Hancock and I had been spending most of our time running Minutemen errands, establishing a settlement here, helping one out over there. Whenever we were in Sanctuary for a few consecutive days, we would do general light maintenance on the town while the sun was out and hang out in the tavern after dark, shooting pool and getting sloshed.

Hancock taught me how to properly cook cram. And jet. I shared with him all my accumulated knowledge of armor modifications, but he still insisted on wearing the clothes of John Hancock anyway, asserting that armor wasn't necessary with marksmanship as skillful as his. I offered to pass on what I knew about carpentry, which he also refused, remarking that it was best for him not to operate any heavy machinery.

Virgil probably thought I had run out on him or been killed, but really, I had been hoping to come across a new suit of power armor while we out doing Preston's bidding. I had had no such luck, and time was getting away from me. The main reason for this, I think, was because I had expected Hancock to tire of the tedium and run back to Goodneighbor by then, but he hadn't.

In fact, having Hancock travel with me on all my errands had affected me in a profound way. My first impressions of this world had initially left me feeling that being a little bit cutthroat was perfectly acceptable, and before Hancock, it was not uncommon for me to help myself to other people's unattended belongings. But the first time Hancock gave me a disappointed look when I swiped some overpriced ammo from an unsuspecting trader was also the last time I stole anything.

People could say what they wanted about Hancock and his rebellious spirit, but at the heart of him, he was as good as they come. He was the very embodiment of a freedom fighter, but most couldn't see past the promiscuous, drug-addled ghoul, never realizing that he was just endorsing the concept of enjoying life. Most people didn't even know what that was…

…

"Back to Sanctuary" started to become our own little trope. We would go run some Minutemen errands and head "back to Sanctuary", and we continued this way until springtime. With every minute longer each day became and every degree warmer it stayed, Felina seemed a little happier, as though she were solar powered. I noticed her skills improving, and it started to seem as if she didn't need me as much, but I still couldn't tear myself away.

There were long stretches of days where we would just hang around Sanctuary, and she would do the work of the settlers. She seemed to be avoiding the responsibilities involved in finding her son, but was overcompensating with Minutemen duties. I couldn't say anything about it without coming off as hypocritical, since I was avoiding mayoral duties. Live and let live, I suppose.

One mild, sunny afternoon, while Felina was patching a roof, I decided to check on the old lady with the premonitions. The people of Sanctuary were not too keen on chem use, and they really didn't like when Mama Murphy used. I personally didn't see a problem with it, so she and I hung out from time to time.

"How's it going, Mama Murphy?" I asked as I neared her porch chair.

"Great, John! Could be better if I had some med-x…"

"Come on, Mama. I've told you before, it's Hancock."

"I like John better."

I sighed and gave handed her a loaded hypodermic needle. "You be careful with that," I said as I readied one for myself. I looked to either side to make sure no one was watching before we pushed in our respective plungers.

Her body instantly melted to her armchair as she let out a relieved, "Ahhh."

I felt the chemicals chase all the ill feelings out of my blood. I rocked my head back and forth to an imaginary song in my head. "You said it, sister."

When she gripped the fabric of the chair with white knuckles, I knew it was time for the weird part. She was about to do her vision thing. A cool breeze blew across my face, bidding me to pay attention. I sat down on the porch floor and settled in.

"I know you want to flee… "

"No, it's fine. I'm getting used to this now –"

"But you can't run forever. You have to stop running, John."

This was hitting a little too close to home for me. I grimaced as the chills shimmied down my spine. "Please don't harsh my vibe."

"It's true you can't change the past, but the future is ever changing, morphing, and your presence is more important than you think. You have to stop running."

I started to feel a bit nauseous. "Mama Murphy, I hear what you're saying, but I'm going to have to flee this porch if you keep talking like that."

"It wouldn't do any good. You can never escape yourself, but you might miss your most important opportunity if you try to. The one thing that will make you _want_ to stop running…" Her eyes glazed over, and she stared straight ahead, like she was looking through me. "I see you standing alone in the dark. She's alone, too, covered in blood, but she will never be on her own for long. You, though…It's just so dark where you are…"

A shadow crept over me from behind, and I turned to look over my shoulder. Preston was standing there.

"Hancock," he said.

"Ye-e-es?" I replied with a sarcastic bob of my head.

His face was stern. "What did you give Mama Murphy?"

"Only a little med-x. She's old and arthritic, man."

"It's true," she said.

I nodded and continued. "That's what the stuff's for."

He glared at me. "Did she also mention that she has a weak heart?"

"I can't say it ever came up."

"It's from excessive chem use. This stuff could kill her."

Mama Murphy waved a hand dismissively at him. "We all gotta go sometime, Preston."

"Yeah, but not this way. We're all working really hard to provide a good life for you and the rest of the people in Sanctuary. Don't you appreciate that?"

I interjected, "Yeah, but you're talking about quality of life – "

"This isn't up for debate, Hancock."

I was fuming. "Well, what's done is done. Did you need something else or was that it?"

He looked over his shoulder. "Yeah, where's Felina? I need to talk to her."

I pointed to the roof of a nearby house. "Doing the damn thing."

He turned and left without another word.

"Look, Mama, maybe we shouldn't do this anymore," I said as I stood up.

"Oh, don't listen to him. If it wasn't for the Sight, we never would have made it to Sanctuary in the first place."

"Just the same, I need to get going. I'll see you around."

I cringed as she called out, "Goodbye, John."

I started making my way over to the building Felina was patching. Preston was at the foot of the ladder, and I could see her climbing down as I stealthily stayed out of their line of sight. As mad as Preston was about the med-x, I fully expected him to demand that Felina send me away, and I wasn't going to allow that conversation to go down out of my earshot. I had a right to defend myself if things got nasty.

I ducked down among the tool boxes in Felina's carport as they made their way to her house. They took a seat on the couch in her living room only a few feet away from an open window, and I posted up next to it.

"You really are one of the good guys, you know?" he said to her.

Felina chuckled. "I hate to break this to you, but I'm not a guy."

"Yeah, obviously…I mean, not that I'm specifically paying attention or anything… Well, you know what I mean. But just, hear me out for a second." He paused and I could hear the springs in the couch creak as he repositioned himself. "Since we met, I think you know I've really come to respect you. Both as a leader and as a friend. Most people are just out for themselves, one way or another, even the 'good' ones. But you're different. You really care about other people. Even when it isn't convenient or even safe. I've seen you risk your life more than once to help people just because it was the right thing to do. I just wanted you to know that… Well, it matters. You're making a difference."

There was a long silence. "Well if any of that is true, a lot of it is because of you… "

 _Oh, no_. This is not what I thought it was going to be at all.

"…and Hancock, too," she continued. "You've both shown me how to be a better person."

I felt my pulse speed up. _She thinks_ I'm _a good influence?_ And enough so to mention it during this conversation where Preston clearly meant to hit on her. _Wow._

I heard the springs creak again. "Yeah, about Hancock…" Preston's amiable tone instantly went sour. "I think you're giving him a little too much credit. I caught him giving Mama Murphy chems again."

"She's an adult, Preston. He's not forcing her. She constantly asks for them. I don't think it's a good idea, either, but the heart wants what it wants."

"Her heart can't handle what it wants," he retorted.

"Just the same, this is a pretty messed up world, and I don't think it's up to us to deny someone what makes them happy."

"She's slowly killing herself, General."

She hesitated. "Well, I dunno what to do about that, Preston. Does the Commonwealth have, like, a psychiatrist or something? She's pretty miserable without the chems, and if Hancock didn't give them to her, she'd probably just start shooting up Abraxo cleaner straight from the box."

"That's not very realistic. What is possible, though, is she may start trying to steal them from Hancock. Especially if he stops giving them to her now."

"Why is th-… So then why do you want him to stop giving them to her?" Felina's voice raised in pitch. "You know what? Just forget it. Just - Don't say what you're about to say, Preston."

"I have to say it…"

"It's going to be a problem either way –"

"I think he should go."

"Well, that's not happening. I'm sorry."

"General – "

"No! I'm done talking about this." The springs expanded as she got off the couch. "I've got work to do."

Footsteps stormed out of the house. I peeked over the window ledge and saw Preston staring straight at me. I stood up. "Oh, hey."

"Looks, like you get to stay, junkie," he said with icy contempt.

At least he didn't hate me for being a ghoul. He picked a better reason. I can respect that. I guess.

He got up from the couch and came toward the window. "Remember our little talk we had your first night here?"

"Yeah, you told me not to put any moves on Felina. You didn't say anything about Mama Murphy and the chems."

"I shouldn't have to. You should know better. Besides, I don't believe you're keeping your end of the original bargain."

"What? Why? Because she ain't interested in _you_?"

"No, because she thinks waaay too highly of you."

"That ain't my fault. I'm just as surprised by that as you are."

"Call it what you want, but you need to watch yourself. I'm not out to make enemies, but it's starting to look like you're not going to give me a choice." He slammed the window shut and walked out the front door.

I had given Preston the benefit of the doubt when he gave his over-protective daddy speech to me in the tavern a couple months back, but it looks like my first impression was correct: he did indeed have a thing for Felina.

I couldn't really blame him, when I was having the same problem...

I didn't want to fall for Felina. I didn't want to fall for anyone. I didn't ask for this. I also didn't realize what it looked like from the outside before then. It hadn't occurred to me that the feelings could be mutual.

I could handle myself in a one-sided, unrequited love situation, but it was going to be really hard to control myself if she…

Just, fuck.

…

After spending a few particularly leisurely days in Sanctuary in a row with no Minutemen requests from Preston, I felt like we were being too idle and decided we needed to proceed with tracking down the courser. Hancock agreed. As we were preparing to head to the Commonwealth Institute of Technology, that's when we were intercepted by Preston with news of a settlement that needed our help. Hancock and I shot each other a look as he spilled out the details.

"Ok, Preston. We will go there first," I assured him as we zipped up our bags and threw them over our shoulders.

When we got there, the residents were overjoyed to hear that we were with the Minutemen. They asked for our help with a "ghoul problem" while looking sideways at Hancock.

The source of the problem was more than a couple miles away, which left me wondering on our journey there how much of a problem these ghouls really were. With Hancock in front, I lost my train of thought and became mesmerized by the graceful flutter of his coat tails as he walked.

It had been quiet between us for a while, and I was suddenly uncomfortable.

"Hey, Hancock. I'd like to get something out in the open."

His thin lips curved into a mischievous smile, with an unlit cigarette clinging desperately. "Got my attention."

"What are your thoughts on what we're doing for these settlers?"

That didn't seem to be the topic he expected as evident by a sigh before he began speaking. "I'm pleased by your eagerness to help. Especially when you have so many of your own issues to attend to. It's really great that you would put the needs of others first. It's the whole reason I came out here." He lit the cigarette that had been dangling in his mouth for a while. "I always have fun blowing the heads off raiders, but I'm more excited by the idea of directly helping someone with our violence. Makes it all worthwhile."

I was a little surprised by his response. "So, you're not the least bit fucked up by their request for us to kill ghouls?"

"Are you fucked up about killing raiders?"

"Well, no. They're human scum."

He nodded. "Exactly. We ain't on our way to slay a bunch of sentient ghouls having a rough go at it. They're feral. They are the ghoul equivalent of raiders."

"You know, I hadn't really thought of it like that."

Hancock grinned. "If someone needs help, we help 'em. If someone needs hurting, we hurt 'em. It's not hard."

* * *

As we neared a partially demolished diner, I heard the idle growl of feral ghouls. I stopped in my tracks to scan the environment. I was just about to motion for Hancock to get into sneak mode when I felt a jerk at my collar pull me to the ground. For a split second, I thought I had been brought down by one of them, but when Hancock put his hand over my mouth, I realized it was him. He put his index finger from his other hand up to his lips to make the "quiet" gesture. I gave a slight nod, and he pulled his palm away from my face.

We were ducked down by a derailed freight container with the door partially slid open. He made another hand gesture that I interpreted as "stay here." Then, with fluidity and urgency, he pulled a knife from his boot and slipped into the open container. A moment later, I saw a spray of blood shoot past the door and a muffled thump. His hand came into view with a "come on" motion, and I complied.

Once on board, I saw the corpse of a freshly killed feral. "Nice work," I whispered.

He whispered back. "Ok, listen, best I can tell, there at least seven ferals outside that diner, and there's no way of telling how many may be inside."

I carefully peered around the opening of our shelter to see for myself. "I only see six."

"Trust me, it's seven. Now, how do you want to do this?"

"I'm out of .308 rounds, but I have a silenced 10mm. I can try to pick off as many as possible from here without alerting them."

Hancock lowered his eyebrows in deep thought. "They're kinda far for a 10. How good are you with that thing?"

"Better than average."

"Ok, then. When I leave, count to thirty before you start shooting."

"What are you going to do?"

He jumped down from the freight car. "I'm gonna sneak inside the diner and start cutting throats."

My eyes got wide. "I don't like the sound of that."

"It'll be fine. Just count them as you take them down. When you're sure ya got all seven, take a look around to make sure there ain't any more, stay low, and meet me inside."

"I don't think-"

"See you at the diner." He was gone before I could finish my thought.

28…29... I already had my first shot lined up when I got to 30. Headshot. None of the others noticed so I took aim for the next closest target. Another solid shot – one bullet, one kill. Number three also dropped like a bad habit. Number four took two shots, but it didn't blow my cover. Two more were in clear view, but I still didn't see number seven. Five and six were almost out of range, so I knew they were going to be tricky. I fired off a single round at the next feral, but it didn't hit. I took a deep breath and fired once more. Missed again.

I knew this wasn't going to work, so I climbed down as quietly as I could. The only other cover I might be able to use was a small skeleton of a shrub about twenty feet away. I crept up to it and got down as low as I could. Once more, I attempted to hit one of the ghouls, but still wasn't successful. I was going to have to get closer.

Lamenting that I was out of ammo for my sniper rifle, and with no cover, I moved out in the open to take my shot. I hit number five, but not lethally. My next bullet landed as well, but still didn't kill him. That was the shot that got his attention. Bolting, they came at me with unnatural speed. I rapidly fired two more shots, both failing to hit anything, and now the chamber was empty.

By now, they were close enough to dive on me. The first one tried, but I was able to side step him. The other was close enough to grab me. I tumbled out of the way, but not fast enough to keep from taking a blow to the face. Feeling the warm trickle of blood down my cheek, I got a rush of determination. I pulled an already loaded pipe pistol from my waistband and sent a bullet through his left eye, and then promptly double tapped the other one before he could do anything.

Five and six down, still didn't see number seven. If there even was another feral, surely he would have bum rushed me with the other two. I scanned my surroundings, and saw nothing but corpses scattered about. I figured I should go on to the diner.

Once I was close enough, I slid around the doorway with my back to the wall in case there really was a number seven. As soon as my body came around the threshold, I was face to face with a growling feral, but before I could react, I saw Hancock slide his knife across its throat from behind, and the ghoul sank to the floor, lifeless.

"Did you get all seven?" were the first words out of Hancock's mouth.

"No, I'm telling you, there were only six."

"No, you're wrong." His body snapped into a sneaking position, pulling the shotgun from its home, and he slinked out the door with catlike grace. Following nonchalantly, I holstered my gun and leaned against the outside wall as Hancock wandered around the corner of the building out of sight.

My guard was only semi-down as I looked over the grounds, seeing something move close to me out of my peripheral vision. Certain it was a hand, I reached out to block and grabbed the arm of the seventh ghoul that had been hiding in a rusted out car body. I was already reaching for my gun when I saw the look of fear on his face. It was then that I realized he wasn't feral. "You...?"

"Please don't hurt me," he said.

I let go of his arm, and just stood there, looking him over. That's when I noticed Hancock behind him. Having made a complete circle around the diner, he was moving in slowly with his shotgun pointed at the ghoul.

"No, don't!" I shouted.

Hancock hesitantly released the pressure he was putting on the trigger.

"He's not feral!"

Hancock lowered his shotgun and calmly walked over to us. "I told you there were seven."

"Are you the only non-feral?" I asked the new ghoul.

"Yeah. I am now."

"Oh, no! ...We didn't –" A flash of fear struck me as I replayed the carnage in my head, hoping I hadn't shot a civilized ghoul.

"No. No you didn't." The ghoul hung his head.

"What were you doing here with all these assholes, then?" Hancock asked.

"There were two others like me, Will and Sara. We had been staying here for some time, but then the ferals started showing up. Sara said she had seen a village a few miles south of here, so she went to go pay them a visit to see if they would be willing to give us jobs in exchange for staying with them, but she never came back. Will had a thing for her and got irrationally upset when she didn't return. He took a baseball bat with him and went to the village looking for her, mad as hell. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn't listen. This was almost a week ago, and he never came back either. I can only assume the worst."

Hancock shot me a look and then addressed the new ghoul. "What's your name?"

"Hoyt."

"I'm John Hancock, and my associate here that just stopped me from opening fire on you is Felina. Look, pal, I know how tough it can be for ghouls to make it around here." He held a hand out in my direction and asked me, "You got a spare weapon?"

I pulled the pipe pistol back out and laid it in his palm.

He extended it to Hoyt. "Here. I'm the mayor of a town that is more accepting of our kind, but it's kinda far. I'm formally inviting you to move there." He then gave him directions to Goodneighbor and advised him on what to say when he got there to ensure that they made room for him at the State House.

Hoyt grinned, with morose eyes. "I'll head that way first thing tomorrow morning."

"Hang on." I remembered how Hancock tried to help Chase and started digging around in my bag. I gave him some .38 rounds for the pistol, some scavenged armor, and a few other supplies. "I just want to make sure you've got what you need to get there."

I glanced over at Hancock as I handed over the equipment. His look of approval gave me a sense of self-satisfaction.

Hoyt seemed to liven up a bit. "Thank you both so much. I don't know what I would have done if you didn't come along."

"It's nothing, friend," I said, offering my hand for a shake. "We're sure to pass through Goodneighbor eventually, so we'll be checking up on you to see how you're doing."

"I can't thank you enough."

"In the meantime, we have to get going. But we'll be seeing you again, Hoyt."

He continued to stand there and watch us as we headed back up the road where he saw his friends go for the last time. I looked back at him before we disappeared over the hill.

"And I thought you didn't like ghouls." Hancock remarked snarkily as we walked.

"Well, you thought wrong."

* * *

It was getting late when we returned to the settlement, so we had to stay the night. As the people there were preparing to have a group meal in the town's center, I called for their attention. With everyone present, I had a talk with them about the two ghouls that had come their way. They insisted that those weren't the only ghouls that had been in the area, and that if they had made the mistake of attacking the two non-ferals, that it was an honest error.

I wasn't satisfied with their response. "If you want the continued support of the Minutemen, you can't make any more mistakes like that. Ghouls are people, too, and it is everyone's responsibility to help each other if we expect to improve the overall situation in the Commonwealth."

They agreed, but dinner seemed a little quiet to me after that. Eventually, someone rolled out the wine, and things got a little better. Hancock made a point of being particularly charming, and I could tell the people were starting to like him. I was contented by this, his popularity only helping to drive my point home about the fair treatment of ghouls.

Things started to die down, and the people were thinning out as they dispersed one by one to their houses. When we were the only ones left, we took the rest of the wine with us up to one of the covered lookout towers where we were told we could sleep for the night.

We were both getting noticeably intoxicated as we watched the stars and shot the shit from our little private tower. I started poking fun at Hancock, calling him a lightweight, until he reminded me that wine was not the only thing he had consumed that night. I turned the pip-boy radio on low, and we sang along with Diamond City Radio.

"You are constantly impressing me," Hancock blurted out during my rendition of _Easy Livin_ '.

I had been so into it, I didn't even notice he had stopped singing with me. Once I stopped singing as well, I noticed my head was spinning. "You're not so bad yourself."

"When you first showed up in Goodneighbor, I thought for sure I would have been picking your teeth out of a gutter by sundown. Turns out, I was worried for nothing. You hold your own in a fight pretty well."

"Well…..ya know." I smiled, swaying a bit from the wine. I tried to play it off as rhythm with the music, but I doubt it worked.

"And your heart's in the right place. I'm really dazzled by how you handled things today."

I could feel a slight jolt of sobriety hit me as I listened intently. The situation with the settlers earlier had apparently opened up an old wound, and he told me about his childhood in Diamond City, before he was a ghoul.

"So your real name is John McDonough?" I had completely forgotten that he went by an alias.

"That's right, Mayor McDonough is my brother. When he got elected as mayor of Diamond City, it was because of a campaign promise to rid the city of the ghouls. I stormed into the stands after his inauguration speech. He was looking out over the fields and said, 'I did it, John. It's finally mine.' Families with kids were dragging folks they called neighbor out into the streets. I begged and pleaded with him to call it off, but he wouldn't. Said he didn't have anything against the ghouls. He was just carrying out the will of the people. And then he smiled…That hideous fucking smile…he had never smiled like that before. I didn't even recognize him."

"You shouldn't beat yourself up about it." I assured him. "You couldn't have saved them all if you tried."

"Yeah, I could have tried harder, though."

"You didn't murder those ghouls. He did."

"And all the people in that city – even the good people – stood by and did nothing. I wasn't a ghoul yet at this point, so I didn't have to leave, but there was no way I was going to stay after that."

As Hancock reached the end of his story, he started to get a bit saccharine. "I know I run my mouth, but having someone who sees the world for what it is and is willing to do something about it, it's meant a lot to me. I feel damn lucky to have you as a friend."

"And that's what we are? Friends?" _Where did that come from?_ In that moment, I realized that I had definitely had too much to drink.

"Well, now that you mention it, I have been having slightly more impure thoughts than usual…"

There was no time for me to react to what he just said. I rushed for the tower's railing and evacuated my dinner to the ground almost two whole stories below us.

Hancock raised a brow. "I hope that was just alcohol poisoning."

"Yeah, sorry," I said as I wiped my mouth on my sleeve. I turned the pip-boy radio off. "I think I need to get some sleep, John."

"John?" Now both his brows were raised in surprise.

"I'm sorry –"

"No, that's fine." He smiled. "You can call me that."

"Good night, John," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. I had meant for it to be an affectionate token, but it ended with me having to use him as support to get safely to the mattress on the ground.

"Good night, darlin'." He was still smiling as he dimmed the lantern.

I awoke briefly after a few hours and noticed that Hancock had his arm over me as he slept. I wondered if it had been intentional. Either way, I determined that I was okay with it. I backed up into him tighter and went back to sleep.


	6. The Chip

I was hungover and I even had a black eye from the bout with the ferals the day before. I must have looked as bad as I felt, because Hancock would not quit asking me if I was ok and offering me chems. He didn't bring up our conversation from the previous night at all, though. I wondered if he just figured I had been too drunk to remember. Regardless of the reason, I was grateful to not have to rehash it while I was feeling so shitty.

Once we were close enough, I tuned the pip-boy to the proper station so we could track down this courser. It was surprisingly easy to follow the signal to its source. We entered the building it took us to, unprepared for the events that were taking place there. The courser was single handedly taking on a large number of mercenaries inhabiting the building. It was unmistakable that they belonged to the Gunner faction, judging by the skulls painted on their military uniforms, and I was perfectly okay with their demise. Gunners were responsible for the defeat of the Minutemen in the Quincy Massacre, so they were no friends of mine.

We traversed the dilapidated floors as stealthily as possible, picking off Gunners when we could, but their pre-existing war with the courser was the main cause of Gunner deaths. I was troubled by how effective at wasting them the courser was.

All the way up, I had yet to see the courser with my own eyes. He was always a little bit ahead of us. My nervousness grew the closer we got.

As we approached the top floor, I could hear a conversation taking place above us between the courser and a captured Gunner. Hancock and I had successfully remained hidden the whole time, so taking him by surprise didn't seem difficult, but we hadn't discussed a plan of action beforehand.

We arrived at the doorway to the room where the courser was. Pausing on either side of the threshold, we tried to communicate our intentions to each other without words. Finally, when we both knew the moment was right, we barreled through the door and started shooting. We barely had time to get off two rounds when he seemed to vanish into thin air.

"Invisi-bitch!" Hancock yelled

"What?!" I had no idea what was going on. The pip-boy targeting sequence wouldn't even lock onto him.

"He's using a stealth boy!"

As soon as I understood, I caught a glimmer of the courser's camouflaged outline moving around the room, which became easier to follow with every shot he fired. I rapidly pulled my trigger over and over, but I kept missing him. I did, however accidentally wipe out every one of the Gunner captives in my blunderous frenzy.

The courser's stealth boy wore off, and Hancock and I were able to land a barrage of bullets on him before he had time to dispatch another one. Once the second stealth boy was in full effect, he stopped shooting long enough for us to lose him completely.

There was no sign of him for what seemed like entirely too long. "Is he still here?" I asked Hancock out loud.

"Yeah, stay on your toes," he snapped.

Just then, my eyes were able to focus on his figure right as his weapon came down on the back of Hancock's head, knocking him limp. "Nooooo!"

I felt time stand still. With laser precision, I unloaded my clip on the courser. It took an ungodly amount of bullets, but when he reappeared for the last time, his body recoiled backwards into a wall from the force of my shots, hitting with a loud thud. His legs collapsed under him, and his back slid down the wall, leaving a trail of smeared blood.

I rushed to Hancock's side and dropped to my knees, healing him with a stimpak as quickly as I could. I started to panic when he didn't immediately respond. My hand instinctively flew to my mouth and I could feel burning tears forming in my eyes. "Oh, John…"

Just then, his eyes fluttered open. "Is that the best the Institute's got? I'm not impressed." He coughed the words out, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

"Dios mío." I cradled him on the ground. "That was close…"

Just then, I heard a faint, distressed female voice, but I couldn't make out any distinct words. I looked up and saw her face peering at us from behind an interior window.

Hancock patted my back. "I'm ok, really. Go see what that's about."

I searched the room and got the courser chip and some terminal passwords. I fooled around with the terminal until I managed to get the elevator working, an outer door open, and finally, the cell open where the women was being held. She was the escaped synth that the courser had been sent to reclaim. She refused our help and quickly left after a brief thank you.

I put one arm around Hancock to help him to his feet, but once standing, he wasn't ready to take the elevator out. I supported him as we headed to the outer door to get some fresh air.

Beyond the door was an empty rooftop with some prewar skeletal remains. We sat and soaked in the aerial view of Boston while Hancock recovered.

"You have the chip?" he asked me.

"Absolutely."

"So what now?" He grunted as he repositioned himself.

"Well, we have the chip, but I still don't have the power armor I need to get back to Virgil, sooo..."

"Sooo…?"

"Back to Sanctuary I guess."

"Where did you get your power armor before?"

"I found it in a crashed vertibird in Concord."

Hancock sat in silence for a while before he finally let out an exasperated sigh. "I know where you can find another suit." He reluctantly pointed off into the distance at the airship hovering over the airport.

* * *

Once Hancock was ready, we headed off to the airship looming over downtown Boston. It wasn't as far as it seemed. When we came within range of the airport's entrance, Hancock stopped walking.

"What is it?"

"I'm going to wait here," he told me with resolve.

"Don't be silly, come on." I waved forward.

"No, Felina, I mean it. The Brotherhood doesn't take too well to my kind."

"How's that?"

"The Brotherhood. They have it out for anything that ain't human. Super mutants. Synths….Ghouls. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume they would just open fire on me."

I stood there in quiet thought. "Ok, we'll just forget the whole thing, then," I concluded.

"This is gonna be your best bet to get a suit of power armor right away. Collecting them is like the only thing they do besides ethnic cleansing. We've wasted enough time. Just go speak to them and see if you can get one. I'll wait here until you get back."

I was hesitant, but I finally agreed. "Ok, but I'm just going to have a quick conversation with them, and I'll be right back. Don't move from this spot."

"Don't worry about me, I can keep myself occupied." He plopped down on an unstable looking bench and promptly started digging around in his jacket at his party favors.

There were Brotherhood representatives all over the ground, and there was no way they were going to just let me up in the ship. I was told to go investigate a post they had lost contact with and then maybe they would consider initiating me. I got the impression that it was supposed to be a wild goose chase to get rid of me, but I accepted their challenge anyway and reported my findings back to Hancock, who was already on cloud nine from whatever concoction of chems he had thrown together while I was gone.

We made our way to the Cambridge Police Station. Once it was close enough to be seen, we observed a mob of ferals antagonizing the outpost. Hancock literally waltzed with the grace of a ballroom dancer into the hairiest part of it, effortlessly popping ghouls left and right with me closely in tow. He was high as a shit house rat, and I was scared that the Brotherhood there would shoot him like one of the ferals. I kept myself between him and their view as well as I could, and the two of us straight up massacred wave after wave of ghouls from the front gate more effectively than the trained soldiers just inside the station's fence.

When the ghouls finally stopped coming, I nudged Hancock with my elbow, and he comically put his hands up in the air, dropping his weapon and exclaiming, "Don't shoot!"

Two soldiers were by the door, on their knees attending to wounds. A third soldier in power armor, Paladin Danse, was standing, looking on us in astonishment. He waved us over. "We appreciate your assistance, citizens. What's your business here?"

I explained that I was sent to help. Danse wasn't very thrilled at the sight of Hancock, but their station was in some deep shit, and he begrudgingly accepted our aid reestablishing contact with their base.

We followed him to a building rife with synths and helped him retrieve what he needed to repair their communications array. The ordeal involved another mob situation where we handily dealt with an impossible amount of gen 1 synths in one room.

Despite his obvious loathing for Hancock, Danse was very impressed with our battle finesse. This was the first time I realized the two of us were operating with a deep connection when it came to dealing death. The thought inexplicably gave me butterflies and I was smiling like a giddy moron as he praised our dual prowess.

He said he was going to recommend me for initiation, and not Hancock, of course, for "obvious reasons," and then he said what I wanted to hear: He was going to get us onto the airship. The Prydwen, as it were.

I couldn't help myself. "So when I join the Brotherhood, I get my own suit of power armor, right?"

He gave me a suspicious look. "Yes, every initiate gets one." I think he was catching on to me.

* * *

The only way to get to the airship was by vertibird, so once the array was repaired, he requested one from the base. As far as I knew, the Brotherhood of Steel was the only faction of people that had access to them. It's a shame I didn't see eye to eye with the Brotherhood, because my own private helicopter would have been pretty useful.

Once aboard the Prydwen, I had to sit through a speech by their leader, Elder Maxson. That wasn't so bad. The worst part was passing through the halls and enduring all the off-color remarks about my ghoul companion.

"Behave yourself, freak," said the paladin by the entrance to the main deck.

"I ain't about to start now," Hancock retorted. He gave the guy a snarky grin as we walked past him through the door. "Brotherhood of Steel thinks ghouls are all monsters. Let's see 'em make a move. I'll show 'em who the monster is…"

We passed another paladin on deck. "If your ghoul even looks like it's going feral, I'm putting it down."

I could feel Hancock holding back a growl.

"Only good ghoul is a dead ghoul," he mumbled once he was behind us.

Hancock stopped and turned back to face him. "Watch your mouth, _friend_. It's getting you in trouble."

"You know," he said, bowing up to Hancock, "your kind aren't really welcome here."

Hancock took a couple steps toward him until he was right in the paladin's face. "And what are you going to do about it?"

"Just give me a reason…"

"You wanna try me?"

I put my hand on his arm. "Hancock…"

The paladin raised his laser rifle. "Are you sure that thing's tame?"

Hancock's eyes focused intently on him. "Heh. Hardly."

I stepped in between them and glared at the paladin. "Yeah, he's a perfect gentleman when you aren't trying to push his buttons."

He stared back and forth between us for a moment before lowering his weapon. "You keep track of your ghoul. I don't want to be the one picking up chunks of it later."

"C'mon, Hancock." I began leading him away. Once we were out of earshot, I added quietly,"Try to keep your cool, for now, alright? I haven't got that power armor yet."

I felt his muscles lax slightly under my hands. "Okay… For you."

I was instructed to meet with the resident physician for an exam. He asked me some strange questions involving radiation and communicable diseases. Number three got me, though:

"Have you ever had sexual relations with any species considered non-human?"

I had not, but I felt my eyes instinctively get wide, and I caught myself shooting a sideways glance at Hancock. I quickly re-averted my eyes onto the doctor, hoping no one noticed. It became apparent to me that neither the medical examiner nor Hancock had noticed, because they were both too busy eyeballing each other.

I prattled off the first thing that came to mind. "Does that happen often?"

"You'd be surprised. Fortunately, the Brotherhood finds that type of behavior absolutely distasteful."

I was at a loss for words.

He looked back down at his clipboard and started writing something. "However, you haven't been out of the vault very long, so I'm going to assume you have not."

Once that godawful situation was over, I was finally assigned my very own suit of T-60 power armor donning the Brotherhood of Steel insignia. It was even better than my old suit. I tried to hide my excitement as I entered it.

Danse started badgering me about going with him on an assignment. I managed to convince him that I had some things to take care of first, but he was still flustered. "You're kind of my responsibility, so I strongly suggest you take me with you on any missions. You can find me on the main deck when you're ready."

"Sure thing, stud," I shouted as our vertibird to the ground took off. "Ad Victorium!"

Once the Prydwen was finally far enough behind us, Hancock started to breathe again. "Very efficient. Now promise me we'll never have to go back there again."

I snickered.

"What's so funny?" Hancock was starting to look genuinely upset.

"I was just imagining Paladin Danse standing on the main deck forever, waiting for me to come back."

"That _is_ kinda amusing. He's probably gonna catch a bunch of shit for bringing us up there in the first place." Hancock smirked. "And you never did answer question number three."

I felt my face get hot inside my helmet. "Yeah, well, the way you were staring daggers, he probably wouldn't have believed the answer is no."

I was pretty sure he mumbled, "For now," and the butterflies came back.

"What did you just say?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just…"

"What?"

"You're forgetting something."

"And what's that?"

"We still have to get the chip decoded."

"Shit."

* * *

As soon as we walked through the gates of Goodneighbor, Hancock took a deep breath. "Ah, that old familiar stench!"

We visited Hoyt, as promised, and found him well. He was happy to see us. From there, I left Hancock at the State House so he could check on a few things while I went to visit Dr. Amari. She told me I was going to have to find someone else to decode the chip but gave me a lead on who to speak to. I thanked her and met back up with Hancock.

He had some lackeys repainting my power armor to cover up the Brotherhood crest. We made a brief appearance at the Third Rail while we waited.

Everyone there was eager to greet Hancock on his return. He gave Magnolia a kiss on the cheek. A few girls made some flirty propositions, and I was surprised when he gracefully turned them down.

A guy at the bar waved him over and gave him a drink. "Hey, Hancock! We got a game going in the backroom right now. I'm sure we can deal you in if you're ready to lose some more caps."

Hancock accepted the drink and patted him on the back. "You know, how 'bout next time? In the middle of something right now, but you and me, we'll catch up later, okay?"

He pulled a few people aside and invited them to a low key get together at the State House.

Hancock regaled his friends with harrowing tales of what he'd been up to since he left, and they were entranced by every word that he spoke. He dripped with magnetism when he was in the spotlight, and even having been there for all of the stories he relayed, I was still allured by the way he told them. I caught myself fixating on him when the room erupted into laughter at one of his anecdotes. I smiled with unconscious adoration at the way he threw his head back into a hearty laugh, catching his tricorn hat with one hand.

I looked around the room and noticed he was really quite attractive compared to the other ghouls. He was more than a ghoul with exceptionally high charisma. He had a lot going for him, actually. So what if he did a few chems? Despite everything he had been through, he came out on the other end a better person with a strong moral compass. When I thought about it honestly, I realized that seeking his approval is what had kept me from letting this world corrupt me. My eyes were drawn back to him, and I relished how good it made me feel to see him so happy.

He saw me looking at him, and met my eyes. He grinned wider and winked at me discreetly before directing his attention back to his audience. There went the butterflies again.

* * *

"Are you sure you're ready to go already?" I asked him the next morning.

"Yeah, they're doing fine without me. Just making an appearance was plenty to keep things in line."

"If you want to stay, I'm not twisting your arm or anything…"

Hancock's brow furrowed. "Are you trying to get rid of me?"

"No! Of course not! You just seemed to really be enjoying yourself last night, and I'm just making sure you're not homesick."

He scoffed. "That's not a problem. This place doesn't really feel like home anymore." He raked an arm across his desk, pushing an assortment of chems into a pile which he then swept into his bag. "Yeah, I'm done here. Let's go."

Our next task was finding the Railroad. They were a group of underground fringe activists striving to help gen 3 synths escape the Institute and become normal members of society. They would wipe their internal memory and give them new identities before sending them off into the Commonwealth. Dr. Amari said they would have the means to decode the courser chip, so we set out to find their hidden headquarters.

We had to "follow the Freedom Trail" to find them, which was a cryptic scavenger hunt that lead us to the Old North Church. Down in the basement, we were faced with a sealed entrance protected by a password, but Dr. Amari hadn't given us one.

I looked over at Hancock. "What should we do?"

"I dunno. Try 'railroad.'"

"That's not going to be their password, obviously."

He shrugged. "Well, I don't really have any ideas, so…"

I didn't either. Just for shits and giggles, I put in Hancock's suggestion while I tried to think of a better plan, but amazingly, it worked.

Hancock let out am effervescent laugh.

I gave him a scolding look. "You knew, didn't you?"

"Honesty, no. Whatever works, though, right?"

The door slowly crept open to a pitch black tunnel. We stepped inside cautiously and were suddenly blinded by industrial lights. A woman was standing directly in front of us with guards on either side of her, pointing guns at us. Hancock and I raised our weapons back at them.

"Stop right there," she said. "You went through a lot of effort to arrange this meeting. But before we go any further, answer my questions. Who the hell are you?"

"Put down your weapons first," I said.

"Until I determine you're not a threat, we'll point our weapons wherever we damn well please. Who told you how to contact us?"

I lowered my gun and Hancock followed suit. "Dr. Amari did."

"Interesting." She lowered her gun. "Why are you here?"

"Well, I have this courser chip - "

"You have a what? That is no joking matter…"

Just then, a young man dressed casually with sunglasses and a black pompadour came through a door behind them. "You're having a party? What gives with my invitation?"

The woman seemed irritated. "Deacon! Where have you been? I need intel. Who is this?"

"Wow, news flash, boss. This lady is kind of a big deal out there."

"Sounds like you have a stalker," Hancock said with a smirk.

"It's not like that. A lot of people know about you," he said, sounding excited. "You escaped from Vault 111, right? The Railroad owes you a truckload of Nuka Cola for what you did to Kellogg. He was our public enemy number one. And the Brotherhood of Steel let you into their ranks. That's a hell of a thing there." He turned to the woman and held his hands out to his sides. "Dez, seriously, you haven't heard of her? She's the leader of the Minutemen. It seems like the whole Commonwealth is flying her flag. Lynn, right?"

"Uh, no. It's Felina."

He motioned one hand toward me. "You're the one rebuilding the Minutemen out of Sanctuary, right?"

"Yeah, that's me."

"Yeah, I know who you are. A Chinese nuclear sub. An undersea vault. And a daring rescue. That ring any bells?"

I raised my eyebrows. "No…"

I don't think he heard me. "You saved Rex Goodman from the super mutants at Trinity Tower. That earns you points in my book. Dez, she's the one who cleared Fort Strong for the Brotherhood. She's one of their main knights or something."

I hadn't done any of those things. I shot Hancock a questioning look, and he made a little shrug.

"So you're vouching for her?" Dez asked Deacon.

"Yeah, trust me, she's someone we want on our side."

They welcomed us inside and I negotiated with them over the courser chip. They made me do a few favors for them before they decoded it, and they wanted to keep the chip. _And_ they wanted me to bring them back any information I got if I made it inside the Institute. I did everything they asked me to, and they helped me, but my overall impression of them wasn't very favorable. I felt like they were taking advantage of me needing their help, and their movement seemed kind of pointless. However, they appeared to be on the side of good, so they at least had that going for them.

At long last, we were ready to go back through the Glowing Sea to reconvene with Virgil. As much as I dreaded the idea of going back when we first left there, I was pretty surprised to feel so excited about actually returning.

Once we made it to his cave, Virgil was amazed to see us. Just as I had suspected, he didn't think we'd be back. He told us what he had figured out about teleportation and gave us some schematics for a signal interceptor that should get me inside the Institution. The signal it would need to hijack was hidden on the classical music station that broadcasted from deep under the CIT ruins. Once again, our business was ridiculously brief compared to the journey there, but it was time to go back to Sanctuary, again.

Sooo….

Back in Sanctuary, I tracked Sturges down to show him the blueprints. "Can you do this?"

"Well, let me take a look at that." After several minutes of mumbling he concluded it was doable. "This is really amazing! I probably even have everything on hand that we'll need."

"Well then, I need you to suspend all unessential projects to build this. I'm finally going to rescue my son!" I was overjoyed. "How long do you think this will take to construct?"

"A couple weeks, at least."

"I can hardly wait!"


	7. I Only Have Eyes For You

I rushed across the street to my house to find Hancock and tell him the news. My hands were trembling with excitement as I reached for the doorknob, and I could barely get the door shut behind me. I saw him sitting at the bar. "Hancock!"

"Yeah?"

"It's finally happening! I'm finally going to get my son back!"

He stood up from the stool. "That's the best news I've heard in a while." His smile was almost as big as mine.

I wrapped my arms around him in an exuberant hug with my cheek nuzzled into his chest.

He returned my embrace and exhaled deeply. "Felina."

"Yes?" I lifted my head and looked up at him.

"Seeing you this happy, being here with you, for the first time in my life, things feel…right."

"I couldn't agree more." I was suddenly struck by the significance of wanting Hancock to be the one I shared this moment with.

"If it's okay with you," he said as he pulled away from me, "I've got some things I'd like you to hear."

I felt a pang of worry return to my chest. "Is everything ok?"

"Oh, yeah. Better than that. This is just…tricky."

I was scared of where this conversation was going. I reached into my suit pocket for my cigarettes.

"It seems I've spent my entire life running from everything, first Diamond City, then Goodneighbor. Hell, even myself. I would have done anything to erase that bastard in the mirror. The drug that made me this way, that turned me into a ghoul? I _knew_ what it was going to do…"

The ashes from my cigarette fell like flurries as my hands shook. I remember thinking he's going to run out on me, too. I just knew it. It was the first time I realized how much that would devastate me.

"Lately, I've been thinking," he continued, "maybe all that running I've been doing from my life, myself, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all. I mean, everything happens for a reason, the good and the bad, right?"

"I suppose."

"In the end, all my decisions led me right here, to you. And you…you're the best thing that's ever happened to me."

That's the moment I was certain that this was what I wanted. I kept looking into his dark eyes. I could tell he was about to start speaking again, but I shut him up before he could. With a kiss.

I could feel his surprise when my lips first touched his, like he wanted to draw back, but he didn't. Instead, he melted into it deeper. He let his hands caress down my back, and I began to pull him by his collar down to the couch.

Initially he followed, but stopped in front of me. "What are you doing?"

"Hancock…" I grabbed onto the sides of his coat and gently tugged him closer. "John…"

"I think all this excitement has given you a lapse in judgement."

"No, it hasn't." I asserted. "I love you."

I don't fall easily, and I wouldn't normally put myself out there like that, but this felt…different. However, my words didn't have the intended effect, and he actually looked hurt. "You don't love me. How could you?" he said as though it were impossible. "You deserve better –"

I cut him off. "No no no, that's not how this works. You don't get to make that call. _I_ do, and I've definitely fallen for you."

"I wouldn't wish that on anyone I care about," he said with a half-smile. He was always so confident. I was stunned that I, of all people, had the ability to make him feel vulnerable. "I love you, Felina …but you don't want this. You'd have to put up with my chem habit, my reputation, waking up to this ugly mug…"

"You're not understanding something. It's not that I love you in spite of all that. Everything you are is what I love you for. Your scars and the burdens you bare are a testament to how deeply you feel the suffering of others. Everything you've been through has made you into the best defender of freedom and goodness I've met in this cruel world."

…

"Goodness?" _Did she forget who she was talking to?_

"By my standards. You know what really matters in life. Anyone who thinks any less of you than that doesn't know the real you. I do, and I'll be damned if you'll deny me that when I am baring my soul to you. "

The fire in her words caused a stir in my pants. She was making a huge mistake, and if I was the only one who could stop her, she was doomed. "Felina, I-"

"And if getting me to confess my feelings wasn't what you intended, then why did you even start this conversation?"

 _Fuck, she's right. What exactly did I hope to accomplish? This, of course..._ "Well, I guess that works out for me."

She had no idea what she had gotten herself into. I deliberately tangled myself in her limbs, pinning her to the back of the couch. I took her cigarette from her, dragging from it one time before extinguishing it in the ashtray on the table beside us. I drew her into a forceful kiss, taking care to revel in her sweet taste and soak up as much of the heated, superficial making out I could before continuing, in case things came to an abrupt ending and this would be all I got.

I pulled away one final time to give her the chance to call all of this off. "People will talk."

"Let them. I couldn't care less." She untied the flag around my waist and slowly pulled it loose. With one end still in hand, she suddenly froze, looking up at me with childlike uncertainty. I could tell it had just sank in for her what she had started – and what that entailed. Only a few short months ago, she was struggling with hiding her repulsion towards ghouls, and while she had since developed more than just a polite tolerance for us, being physically intimate with one was another story.

I took over for her, pulling her suit jacket sleeves down her arms and tossing it lightly to the floor, followed by my own coat, and she gazed at me with worried anticipation while loosening her tie. All those character flaws that she was just touting weren't deal breakers were probably about to be amplified in her prewar, vault-dweller eyes once she saw me naked…

When she began to reach for her blouse with ambivalence, I took her hands, guiding them away from her shirt to mine. It was better if she undressed me first – and at her own pace. Getting the idea, she began unbuttoning it. I carefully surveyed her face as she revealed more of me, button by button, vigilant of her reaction for any signs of regret. Upon releasing the last one, she slipped her shaky hands under the open edges and guided my shirt and vest off together, adding it to the clothes pile before gently removing my hat and placing it on top with noticeable care. Turning back to me, she began running her soft fingers over the scars on my chest with loving almost-curiosity, her trembling gradually fading and alleviating my fears. I sighed with both relief and pleasure.

I let her take all the time she needed. Once her touches were definitively lingering southward, I tangled one hand into the hair on the back of her head and brought her lips to mine, easing my tongue in and stroking hers.

I only paused to ask her, "Do you still want this?" Her answer was in the form of one dainty hand squeezing at my aching erection still concealed by my pants. With a growl, I immediately made short work of the buttons on her shirt. _Pop. Pop. Pop._

She withdrew her hand and idly reached for her buttons. "How did you…?"

"Practice." I drew her lips in again and resumed undressing her. I shouldn't have been surprised that she wasn't wearing a bra, but that was fine. Between the two of us, we had enough layers keeping us apart as it was.

I plunged my hand into her open shirt and began massaging her supple breasts. She arched a little at my touch and a soft moan escaped her lips into my mouth. She pulled herself free of her top, exposing herself to me for the first time, and I gratefully observed. She was the same toasted color all over her smooth body, and it was breathtaking. She was clearly getting the raw end of the deal in that department, but I could make up for it with various talents...

I moved my mouth down her neck with softs kisses and nibbles. She began twisting and contorting with every graze of the sensitive area, causing a twitch in my pants. If she reacted like that to kisses on her neck, I couldn't imagine what to expect when I reached my intended destination.

I moved down further, taking her breast into my mouth. As my tongue caressed her nipple, she whined, pushing into me harder. Her reactions were more exaggerated than what I was used to, but I could tell they were genuine. It was so unexpected, and it managed to build my already incredibly strong desire for her more. The longing to go straight for the goal was nagging at me just to see her response, but I was determined to pace myself. I trailed drawn out kisses down her abs, and she began to pant as I unbuttoned her fly.

"Ohhh…Hancock…." I hadn't even broken the barrier yet, and my name was already being breathed from her lips. If she kept this up, I wasn't going to be able to last long.

I easily removed her loosely-worn boots and dragged her pants down her legs. Another surprise – no panties. "Oh, you're dirty," I remarked. Her only reply was a desperate moan. I explored her surface with a single finger, and she cried out. She was burning up and dripping wet. I was already aware it had been a while for her, but I was unprepared for this kind of enthusiasm.

I decided to forgo any more finger work and let myself drop over the edge of the couch, bringing my face between her thighs.

She gasped. "Wh- what are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" I teasingly flicked my tongue up her valley one good time and gazed up her midriff into her shocked face. "I'm gonna see to your needs first."

Her hands flew down, forming a barrier. "You… don't have to do that."

"I know. I want to."

"It's just… I don't really like that."

One brow slid up my face all on its own. "What?"

"I mean, I've tried it before, and I didn't like it."

"Really?"

She nodded vigorously, her hands still blocking me.

"Then you ain't had it done right."

"I'm not so sure."

"I am." I placed a hand on top of hers. "Would you be willing to let me try? I bet I can change your mind."

She kept staring down at me, unmoving and skeptical.

This was not the reservation I expected from this situation. "Please, just trust me. You can stop me at any time if you become uncomfortable."

Finally, she relented with a weak nod, and I gently removed her hands, placing them on her thighs and resting my palms over them. Carefully, I grazed her opening with my tongue, dragging it slowly upward, and I felt her body stiffen. One of her hands began to move in my path again, so I let up, weaving my fingers into hers and cutting her off. "Try to relax, love."

"…Okay."

I went back to exploring with my tongue, and she tightened her grip on my hands. I traced her with mild tension until I found the spot I was looking for. Once there, I began swirling and increasing my pressure. After a few moments of this, her grip on me began to loosen, and she became more receptive to my touches. I lightly sucked at her nub and felt the subtle swell of it in my mouth. I released my hold on her, and a surprised, pleasurable sound slipped from her lips. At that, I suffered a sudden downward rush of my own blood, adding to my preexisting state of over-arousal. Dizzy, I resumed circling and flicking, and soon, her barely audible whimpers grew into full moans while I fought the urge to touch myself.

_"I don't really like that," she says…_

"Oh, fuck! Oh, John…"

_This poor, deprived girl._

I was just as surprised as her by how little it took from there. I barely had a chance at it, and she was already peaking. She fluttered and squirmed with pleasure, and I stayed there as long she would let me until she began to push my head away. My hands were automatically removing my pants as I satisfyingly drank up the sight of her coming undone and unsure what to do with herself.

I hardly suppressed the relieved grunt as I freed my engorged member from its enclosure. "See?" I remarked distractedly. "What did I tell ya?"

Ragged and manic, she reached for me and yanked me closer. "Please, Hancock…"

"Please what?"

She groaned, clearly struggling with forming thoughts. "Please… I want you inside… while this is still…"

I understood perfectly. I pushed her horizontal and steadied myself between her legs. As quick as I could, I drove myself in, and in the moment of penetration, we both gasped sharply. Her still pulsating walls were grabbing at me as her back came off the couch. She felt every bit as good as I could have imagined and then some.

I was scared to move, for both of our sakes. Her heat was radiating all around me, and the warmth was traveling up my spine. My head began to swim, and I tilted it back. "Mmm, Felina." _I could die like this and it would be alright._

Then I heard a faint, "John…" beckoning me to bring her to another completion. I began pumping slowly with her hot flesh tightening around me.

"Oh, John..." It sounded like a chorus of angels calling out to me. Her breathing became heavy. "John… fuck me."

That was it for me. I braced myself on the back of the couch and began thrusting with force. She moved her hips in time with my rhythm, driving me toward where she wanted me. Her volume grew with every push. She grabbed onto my thighs the moment before I felt her coming – that undeniable gushing slick on my dick. She dug her fingers in, and the spike of pleasurable pain shoved me closer. I began to lose control.

I growled with every stroke as she whimpered. "Oh, fuck… _Hancock_!"

Her raw, impassioned cries made it feel like the walls were tumbling down around me. I couldn't hold out any longer. I reached my end, crying her name as I came, and her core milked at me until I was oversensitive. My one arm over the back of the couch was the only thing that kept me from collapsing right on top of her…

…

I wasn't in a hurry to get dressed, but the cold, dying air of winter's last days seeping in through the gaps in the 200 year-old battered walls was finally starting to creep up on me as I caught my breath. Looking around, I thought to myself what a great idea it was to hang that Minutemen flag in the front window. I sat up to put my button-up shirt back around me, but I didn't bother with fastening all of the buttons. Hancock took my actions as a cue that it was ok for him to pull his pants back up and replace his hat.

"It's times like this," he said, lighting two cigarettes at once and handing one to me. "I know all that karma stuff is bull, because someone like me shouldn't be this lucky." He reclined next to me on the couch with one arm stretched across the back.

It had been so long since I had been intimate, and the magnitude of his performance left my brains scrambled. I couldn't remember how to function properly. "So what do you want to do, now?"

He leaned his head back and blew out a stream of smoke. "Give me a few minutes and we can continue where we left off."

I felt my pulse begin to race.

He finished his cigarette and turned towards me, crawling across until we were both horizontal again. He began petting the locks of my hair that were loose in my face.

I was determined not to get distracted just yet. "No, I just, I mean…This wasn't just a casual thing for you, was it?"

"Casual? I'm a little hurt that you would even ask me that."

I couldn't figure out how to brooch the subject. "I mean, you haven't made it any secret that serious relationships aren't really your thing, so where does that leave us?"

"You showed all your cards, I guess it's only fair that I show mine…" He caressed my face, and I leaned into it. "My first thought when I saw you, I thought, you were impossibly beautiful. Your cute little bruised doll face framed by your shaggy, boyish dark hair. Your toned upper body from breaking your back carrying around all that useless junk you can't ever leave behind. And your luscious, curvy hips and ass - all of which you tried to disguise under a man's black suit and a tough facade. You have an unconventional, natural beauty that you couldn't hide, despite your best efforts…"

He slid his hands up the underside of my shirt, brushing the skin on my back with his strong, rough hands, giving me a wave of goosebumps. "You were a dangerous combination of violent and naïve. You had a tragic background – something I could relate to – but you hadn't lost hope, even going out of your way to help others…"

He sat up slightly and ran his hands down my torso, stopping at my waist. "I was falling for you, and I tried to fight it, for your sake. You're so different from the kinds of girls that usually go for me. I mean, I ain't exactly domesticated. And you're no damsel in distress, but I still feel the urge to protect you… and then you would look at me with those adoring eyes, and I knew you were feeling something, too…

"Despite that, I thought that this –" he walked his fingers up the buttons on my shirt. "Where we are now - would be impossible. But here we are. There's no going back for me now… I'm all yours."

I was moved. "I promise I won't let you down."

He kissed me tenderly. "I know you won't, love." With an expert flick of his fingers, he un-popped each button I had just fastened. "Now, where were we?"


	8. Crazy She Calls Me

We didn't leave the house at all that day. After a couple romps had brought us out of the living room to her bedroom, Felina started rummaging through her old dressers naked. Lustfully watching from her bed, I took some jet. When she found the bathrobe she was initially looking for, she immediately put it on and leapt onto the mattress beside me with a smile.

I looked over at the blue fuzzy robe that was precariously draped over her horizontal figure and couldn't help but pull at the paltry fabric belt barley holding it closed. I was ready for another go.

I carefully pulled back one side of the robe to just drink her all in with my eyes – a luxury I wasn't afforded in my fevered frenzy earlier. I ran my hand down her exposed leg, stopping midway to push the other edge of the robe aside, uncovering a substantial scar on her shin. She fidgeted her legs uneasily.

"What's the matter, love?" I asked with a smile. She tried to cover her leg back up, but I softly blocked her hand, caressing the marred flesh there. "You ain't self-conscious of that, are you?"

"A little." She squirmed.

"I've seen you with black eyes and bruises."

"Yeah, but those go away… And at the time, we weren't… you know."

"Look at me," I said gently.

Her face lit up with realization as she looked over my flawed skin. "Oh. No, I –"

At least I knew for sure the whole ghoul thing wasn't on her mind anymore. "It's barely a scratch. If anything it adds to your beauty."

Her cheeks flushed a little.

"I'm enchanted by every inch of you," I said, beginning to trail kisses up her body. "You never have to hide anything from me. Imperfections are what make you real." I saddled a leg over her and pulled myself on top of her. "I need that kind of confirmation right now, because I'm still having a hard time believing this is actually happening."

"Understandable," she said as she cradled my cheek in her palm. "I'm finding it kind of surreal myself."

"So you ain't having any regrets yet?" I asked, only half-joking.

A smile spread across her face and she vigorously shook her head. "No, not at all, querido." She flipped the "r" on her tongue in an alluring way.

"Querido?

She giggled. "You know. Querido."

"No, I don't know, actually."

"It's Spanish for dearest… My desire… My lover… "

I gave her an amused look. "So which is it?"

"All of the above," she replied with a wicked grin.

"That's quite a demanding list, but, yeah, I'm up for the challenge," I said, as I dove in for another round.

* * *

We had a couple weeks to kill before the teleporter could be completed. I had a pretty good idea of what to do with that time, but Felina, ever practical, still wanted to do things like eat and sleep. And, of course, actually work on the teleporter. The next day, I watched as she slipped a blue dress on over her supple body instead of the dumpy black suit. Reluctantly, I also got dressed.

We stepped outside, and the glaring sun overhead stabbed at my eyeballs. She kissed me goodbye on the doorstep and flitted off to check in with Sturges, her skirt flowing behind her. I just stood in the yard, unsure what to do with my alone time. I removed the tin from my pocket and swallowed a couple mentats.

Then I caught sight of Preston staring daggers from across the street. Fuck. I forgot about his bullshit. Best to get this out of the way. "Good morning!" I called to him as I swaggered toward him, straightening my hat.

He wrinkled his nose at me. "It's noon..."

"Well then, good afternoon."

"I had your word," he growled, skipping the pleasantries.

"Did I give you my word, exactly?"

"Yeah, you agreed to 'keep it in your pants'."

"So that," I motioned back across the street to her porch, "was just a kiss. What's the problem?"

"Please. The whole damn town could hear her calling out your name, yesterday. Don't give me that bull."

I raised an eyebrow as I played back some of the highlights from the day before in my head. "Really?"

"Does it matter to you?"

"Look, I know that no matter what I tell you now, there's going to be hard feelings. I get it. But I didn't initiate this. She did."

"You could have resisted."

"Is that what you would have done, Preston? If she came at you, spilling out all kinds of confessed feelings and undressing you, you're telling me you'd be strong enough to resist her?"

"Yeah, I'm sure you put up a hell of a fight, huh?"

"I put up _some_ of a fight. I'm only a man, just like you."

His muscles began to visibly tighten. "She just lost her husband, Hancock."

"Yeah, like 200 years ago."

"More like a few months ago."

I began counting on my fingers. "From her point of view, about six months ago. Do you even know how long she was married? That could be longer than her entire marriage –"

"Do you?"

"No."

"Well, married or not, I guarantee you she was with Nate for at least 9 months. They had a child, remember?"

 _Oh. Right_. I shook my head dismissively. "The numbers don't matter. It was her decision. I didn't pressure her at all."

He exhaled a groan. "I wish I could believe that, but I don't. I'm trying to look out for her –"

"So am I."

"No, I believe you're looking out for yourself."

I fought the urge to roll my eyes at him. "And you mean to tell me you don't have even the teeniest bit of selfish feelings invested in this? Your motives are so-o-o pure, it's all about looking out for Felina, and not even a hint of jealousy has anything to do with you being pissed at me?"

"Look, Hancock. She has worked really hard to pull this community together, and I'm not going to ruin that by fighting with you. When I walk away from this conversation, I'm done with it. But you and I? We are not friends. Remember that."

"Fine. Not friends. Gotcha."

"I'd tell you to stay away from Mama Murphy, too, but you wouldn't listen anyhow. Just know that I'll have my eye on you, and when you slip up, I'll be ready. I will not hesitate to put you in your place." He turned away and stormed off.

"Yeah, I'd like to see you try, cowboy," I muttered under my breath as I went for my cigarettes. He had no idea who he was fucking with.

Fuck this shit. I wasn't ashamed of what I had done with Felina. She wanted me as badly as I wanted her, and we were two consenting adults. Preston could pretend to be Sanctuary's daddy all he wanted, but that wouldn't change a thing. We're not friends? Boo hoo. I guess he wasn't going to invite me to his birthday party. Right then, I knew exactly how I wanted to spend the day.

I strolled over to the workshop carport where Felina was tinkering with Sturges. She was bent over a tool bench, twisting a screwdriver into some hunk of metal. I came up right behind her and grabbed her ass.

She squealed and jumped. "Hijo de puta – Hancock?"

I lowered my eyebrows. "Should I be concerned that you had to ask?"

She chuckled. "No, you just surprised me."

I put my hands on her waist and pulled her to me. "It's my job."

She gave me that playful smile I'm so fond of. "Yeah? Well, it's my job to construct this… thing."

"Can I help?"

She looked stunned. "You want to help?"

"Of course. Anything for you, love."

"Okay." She started looking around. "Okay… there. That pile of broken lamps and telephones over there. Start dismantling them and putting all the copper in this box." She slid a crate out from under the tool bench with her foot. "This teleporter is going to need a lot of power, and I need as much copper as I can get to build more generators."

She thrusted a screwdriver at me, and I grabbed it. "I'm on it."

"Alright." She grinned with satisfaction and turned back to her work. Once her back was to me again, I slid the screwdriver into my boot and glanced around the settlement to locate Preston. If he was going to make it his business to keep an eye on me, I was going to give him a show. When I confirmed that he was watching, I started running my hands down the curves of her hips. I felt her body shift as she drew in a breath and exhaled deeply. I moved my hips closer to her backside and slowly started hiking her skirt up a little.

Without looking, she reached back and slapped at my hand. "Hancock, _no_! Not here… "

I put my chin on her shoulder and whispered into her ear, "Then why don't you come back to the house for a bit?"

"Don't you have work to do?"

"I'll get it done soon enough."

"Not like this you won't. You asked if you could help. I didn't force you."

I pouted. "Fine."

I sat down on the floor by the pile of junk and started pulling things apart. It was tedious and boring. I pulled the mentats out and took a couple more, hoping it would make things a bit more interesting. Looking over at Felina, I observed her tunnel vision as she switched from socket to socket, trying to find the right size for the piece she was working on.

"What do I do with the rest of the junk inside these things?" I asked.

"Well," she said over the ticking sound her wrench made as she tested which direction it was set for. "You could just make a separate pile and we can go through it later, but if you want to be really thorough, you can sort the rest of the pieces into their respective buckets behind you."

"Will you take a break with me if I get through this whole pile?"

"John, I was already late getting started today." She glanced over the mountains of junk I was buried in. "Plus, I don't think you'll get through all of that by sundown."

"Is that a dare?"

"If it makes you more productive, then, yes."

"It does. Can you toss me a hammer?"

She scoffed. "So you can just crack all that stuff open? No. That's what the screwdriver is for."

I sighed sarcastically. "Alright, alright."

Once I had reached what I judged to be about the halfway point, I got up from the floor and eased my way over to Felina, putting hands on her again.

"You are such a huge distraction," she told me.

"You mean 'help'."

"I know what I said." She looked down at her pip-boy's clock. "I'll quit in another hour, how's that?"

"What? I didn't say anything. I'm just stretching a little. My legs were getting cramped down there on the floor. And my back was getting a little achy… Let me just…" I laid down on the floor beside her feet. "Ah, that's better," I said, extending my arms over my head. "This cool concrete feels good."

She flashed a cocky grin. "What are you doing?"

"I told you, just stretching." I folded my hands on my chest and pushed myself a couple feet forward with one foot until I was directly under her skirt. "Still no panties?" I remarked as I casually stared between her thighs.

She pulled the fabric of her skirt together between her legs. "You already _knew_ that! You watched me get dressed this morning."

At this point, I noticed Sturges had grinded to a complete halt on the piece he was working on to stare at us. I smirked at him, and he turned back to his project without a word.

I grabbed her hands that were clasped around the gathers of her skirt and pulled her down on top of me, and she yelped and giggled. I lunged my hips up just once, bouncing her on me. When she came back down, her soft folds landed on the twitching bulge in my pants.

I could tell by the subtle jerk of her pelvis that she felt it. "Okay! You win. I'll quit now."

"Are you sure?" I wiggled myself into her a little.

I had her hot and bothered now. "Oh, yeah. Let's go." She jumped up and pulled at my hands, bidding me to follow. "I'm sorry, Sturges. I'll get here sooner, tomorrow."

He was pinching his sinuses between two fingers with his eyes squeezed shut. "No problem."

I waved to Preston as we raced across the street to her house. When we got to the door, I swept her up into my arms and carried her over the threshold, kicking the door shut behind me.

* * *

After another day of unproductivity like that, Sturges told Felina that he could finish the teleporter without her if she had other things to take care of. I know he was just trying to keep us out of the way, but it really was a good idea, since Felina had never properly set up her own house. She had prioritized every other building in the neighborhood, ignoring her home up until that point, and now that her son was coming back, she was ready to start nesting.

As I watched her enthusiastically paint, repair, and decorate everything in her home, I wondered what place I had in all this and what she expected from me once there was a child living there. Was she going to let me keep sleeping in her room, or would I be reduced to "mommy's guy friend" that sniffed around a lot? She answered all my unasked questions one afternoon, post-coitus.

"I think you're going to make a great dad."

I was a little taken aback. "Wait, what?"

"If you're going to stay here and share a bed with me, you'll obviously be Shaun's main father figure."

"For his sake, that probably ain't a good idea."

"There's no way around it. If you live here, he's going to look up to you."

"If you hadn't noticed, I ain't exactly 'dad material.' I don't think I should be responsible for any small children. It's just not… wise."

"Oh, it's not as horrible is you're thinking. You'll see. Instinct kind of takes over. You take care of me all the time. It's basically the same principle, just without the dirty stuff."

"But the dirty stuff is kind of my forte..."

"You're not that one dimensional. You have survival skills and pretty solid morals. You get to pass that stuff on to him, and when he grows up to be a strong, capable individual, you get to revel in the satisfaction of having a hand in that."

I had never wanted to be a father, and as a ghoul, it was no longer an issue. But I had also never wanted to be tied to one person before. Having a kid around the house would mean no more spontaneous sex on the kitchen counter… but the bedroom would always be on standby. Things were moving a little fast, really, but ultimately, it's what I wanted.

"Yeah, alright. I guess it won't be so bad." I gave her a sly smile. "As long as I get to keep sleeping with mommy."

"Of course! That's one of the implicit perks."

About that time, I noticed the song on the radio ended, and the currently speaking dj sounded smooth and confident: "Just when you thought you'd heard everything folks, there are tales being told about a strange-looking machine being built out in the Commonwealth."

Felina noticed, too, and looked over at me incredulously. "Is that Travis?"

"Can't be."

"Your friend, Travis, here has yet to learn what this thing is for, but I can tell you, imaginations are running wild. Wackiest version I've heard so far is that this thing is supposed to somehow contact the Institute. If it's true, and whoever's building it can hear me, put down the wrench, friend. It will only end badly…"

Felina looked shocked. "Wow! What happened to him?"

"He probably discovered the charismatic power of chems," I said with a grin.

* * *

After a couple weeks of playing house with Felina, the teleporter was finished. Sturges waited until the moment that Felina was getting ready to use it to inform me that I couldn't go with her. My mind raced as she stepped on the platform. I had watched her combat skills greatly improve since I started traveling with her, but I was still worried about not being there to protect her. I couldn't help but think I might not ever see her again. I tried to push the idea out of my head and be optimistic, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.

I had so much to tell her, but they weren't giving me any time. I tried to focus on the single most important thing I could say – just one thing – before she left. The engines whirred loudly and the platform began to glow. I was out of time.

"I love you.." I called to her as she disappeared. Words couldn't say it all, but it was the best I could do.

She was gone.

I looked around at the people who had come to see her off. Preston, Sturges, a couple settlers whose names I didn't even know. The only one of them I was on any good terms with right then was the dog. I gave Dogmeat a pat on the head and went back to the house.

I sank onto the couch and rifled through my pockets for some chems. I decided to skip the mentats. They make me think too much, and with no one else to talk to, that didn't seem like a good idea. Jet would make the time go by even more slowly, so that was another no.

"Med-x it is." I said to no one.

I was answered by a bark.

I looked over my shoulder at the cracked front door. I must not have shut it all the way. "Dogmeat! Get over here." I patted on the couch cushion beside me. "I'm glad you followed me over. You can keep me company."

I had no idea how long Felina was going to take. I started to imagine what she was up against without me, and my mind went to some dark places. I shook my head as though I could physically free myself from those thoughts. Dogmeat was watching and started shaking his body, too, like he would if he was wet. I hastily set up the med-x and pushed it in as quickly as I could. I needed to escape this moment.

The chem coursed through my veins, taking me right out of myself. With its help, I was able to think more forward. When Felina got back, we had some things to take care of. We owed the Railroad a copy of any intel she collected on the Institute. We promised Virgil we would bring him the anti-mutagen from his old lab inside. We would need to arrange for someone to watch over Shawn while we were gone.

 _We._ I laughed to myself. I never thought in "we's" before, but it didn't feel strange at all. _We…_

I suddenly realized what I had to do. I needed to do something about Goodneighbor. Felina had already made it clear she wanted me to stay in Sanctuary with her, and it didn't seem like a choice at all. I needed to pass my title to someone else. It was a bittersweet feeling. I had made that town into what it was, but it looked like it was time for me to move on. I didn't think that day would ever come…

"What about you, Dogmeat?" I asked as I rubbed his ears. "You ever been in love?"

He whimpered.

"I know. It changes your whole perspective. This is a first for me."

He whined again and barked.

"Well, I thought I had been a few times before, but it was never like this, so I guess I was wrong. It's like my whole world depends on her now. She gives me hope, boy... I really need that."

I thought I heard a noise outside. Dogmeat heard it, too, and his ears perked up. I rushed to the door to see if it was Felina, but no one was there. I looked over at Dogmeat. "Of course not. That would be too quick, huh?"

He cocked his head.

"Maybe we should get out of here for a while. Time's going by too slow." He followed me out the door.

I went to the tavern to shoot some pool. When I walked through the doors, Preston was sitting at the bar. _Nope. Not today_. I turned around and walked back out.

Without Felina, this neighborhood sucked. I strolled down Sanctuary's streets with no definitive destination. Mama Murphy called to me from her porch chair.

"John! I haven't seen you in a while! Come hang out with me."

I sat down in front of her on the porch, and Dogmeat laid down next to me. "How's it hangin' Mama?"

"Oh, you know. The usual... So, I never see you anymore. I hear you've been cheating on me with Felina."

"Heh, yeah."

"I forgive you. I knew it would happen eventually."

I smiled. "Of course you did."

"Happy?"

"More than I've ever been in my entire life," I said with absolute sincerity.

"You two need each other. Don't ever let her go."

I gave her a dubious look. "Why would I?"

She only smiled. "So, what you got for me, today?"

I plunged my hand into my pocket and held the paraphernalia I had there loosely in my fingers, thinking for a moment. I let go and pulled my empty hand back out. "Nothing. I'm sorry."

"Oh, quit playing around. I know you must have something."

"No, Mama Murphy. I can't."

All the friendliness in her tone disappeared and she looked hurt. "Why not?"

"I just… I shouldn't. I'm sorry."

She lowered her eyebrows. "Preston got to you."

I was surprised she didn't see that coming. Then again, I didn't foresee it either. "I'm trying to be a better person. I don't care what Preston thinks, but I've seen him give Felina a hard time over it, and I don't want to cause any trouble for her."

Her eyes darted back and forth as panic started to set in. "What am I going to do, John? No one else helps me out but you."

"It's going to be alright. You'll figure something out. I just can't be the cause of any turmoil around here."

After a few minutes, her breathing started to even out. We sat in silence for a long while as I looked off into the distance at the sun. It was starting to disappear over the hills in a smear of pink and purple. I turned back to Mama Murphy and saw she was watching the sunset, as well. "It's beautiful, ain't it?"

"Yeah," she said with little enthusiasm.

"I don't usually notice things like that."

"Finding your soul mate can have that effect on you. You start seeing the beauty in common things."

Dogmeat rested his head on my lap. Her words lingered with me as I sat there with her in the cool spring twilight. It scared me to feel this co-dependent. _Please come home okay, Felina._


	9. The Institute

Once Hancock and I had confessed our feelings for each other, the following couple weeks were absolute bliss for me. I floated from one task to the next without ever feeling like I was working. With Hancock by my side, everything I did felt like an adventure, whether we were attending to nearby settlements or performing routine maintenance on Sanctuary. At some point, I even traded in my signature black suit for a blue dress. At first it was because I was "feeling pretty," but it turned out to be functional, too. Hancock regarded it as "easy access."

Soon, the day came that the interceptor was finished. Hancock walked with me to the lot it was built on to see me off. Sturges and Preston were standing by as well, Dogmeat looked on in curiosity, and Sturges gave me a holotape to collect intel.

Hancock looked up at the towering structure held together with duct tape and wonderglue. "Shouldn't we test this thing first?"

"Not possible," Sturges replied. "We only get one shot before they catch on, so we have to make it count."

"So it's going to transport us both at the same time?"

"Nooo. No, just Felina. You have to stay here."

"What? Bullshit!"

I put my arms around his neck and kissed him. "It'll be fine, querido."

He seemed painfully upset. "…Please be careful."

"I'll be back in no time and things are going to be even better. You'll see."

"I like the way you think." He stroked my hair with one hand, pulling a tress to the front.

I stepped onto the teleportation platform.

"Good luck, General," Preston called to me.

"Thanks."

"Ok, you have to stand real still, Felina," Sturges advised me. "Hold onto your butts!"

I fixed my gaze on Hancock. He mouthed "I love you" as everything got bright and disappeared.

* * *

When the flashes of light died down, I knew I had successfully transported to the Institute. The environment was cold and clinical with tons of working technology lining the walls. Directly in front of me was a terminal, so I was able to get the holotape loaded right away. My heart was pounding while I waited for the holotape to load. Surely, they were aware of the breach to their security by now, but for whatever reason, no one came after me.

When the tape was finished, I cautiously began to explore. I had no idea how I was going to find Shaun, or even how I was going to get out of there, but I was still confident that I would figure it out. Moving forward towards an elevator door, I heard a voice over an intercom.

"I can only imagine what you've heard, what you must think of us. I'd like to show you that you may have the wrong impression."

The voice simultaneously rattled me and filled me with that blood-seeking rage I had felt day one in the vault. I took the elevator to...wherever. It's not like I knew. _I'm coming for you, Shaun._

I traveled down a long glass tube. All around me was a clean, bustling society spanning multiple underground stories. Crystal clear water flowed in man-made canals, bringing water to the healthiest looking flora I'd seen since I awoke from cryogenesis. It looked like paradise, only achingly artificial.

The doors opened when I reached the bottom, and I stepped into a bright room and saw a small, tan child with dark hair inside a glass cell. It was the little boy from Kellogg's memories. "Shaun? Is that you?"

"Yes, I am Shaun. Who are you?"

My eyes got blurry from the tears. "It's me. I'm your mom." I put my hands up to the glass.

"I don't know you! Get away from me!"

"It's ok, calm down. I'm going to get you out of there."

"Help! Father, she's trying to take me!"

"Father?"

Just then, a well-groomed, gray-haired man in a sweater and lab coat entered. He uttered a nonsense phrase and the child slumped over like he…shut down?"

"Fascinating," he said. "But disappointing. The child's responses were not at all what I had anticipated. He is, after all, a prototype."

I felt a pain in the pit of me. "He's a synth?"

"Now, I understand how emotional you must be right now and the extent of the challenges you faced to get here, so let's start over. I am Father. Welcome to the Institute."

"That's your name? 'Father?!'"

"An unofficial title. It's what I have come to mean to the people of the Institute. This situation is far more complicated than you could possibly understand, but it's good to finally meet you after all this time. It's me. I am Shaun."

The pain twisted in my stomach. "¡Puta mentira! Where is my son?!"

"I am your son. Having been cryogenically frozen for 200 years, is it really all that difficult for you to believe that it has been 60 years since I left?"

"Yes, yes it is. They stole my son, for what? To make into their new leader? While his father was gunned down like an animal and I was left to rot! Yeah, that makes a lot of sense."

"I forget that this is all recent for you, but I have no direct memories of either of you and had an entire lifetime to move on. Please try to keep an open mind. The Institute has the best of intentions."

"Which is what, exactly? To what purpose do they murder and kidnap people in the Commonwealth?"

"For the greater good. They needed me as an infant, frozen in time, untouched by the radiation and contaminations of the world above ground-"

I glanced at the limp little boy in the holding tank. "For synth research?"

"Yes, exactly."

"And you really are Shaun?" I was still skeptical.

"Of course. It wouldn't behoove me to be dishonest with you. I want you to give me a chance to prove to you that the Institute really is humanity's best hope for the future. We are on the verge of great scientific breakthroughs, and your presence here would be appreciated as we approach them. You have a chance to help. Isn't that what you want?"

"I want nothing more than to help, but I don't believe that what the Institute calls 'helping' is something I can feel good about."

"Please, give me time, and I know I can convince you otherwise."

He continued to speak, but I was barely paying attention. Nothing he said brought any comfort. The more he talked, the more my world fell apart.

"Consider the Institute your home as much as mine. Have a look around. Make yourself comfortable. Take all the time you need to think, and come find me when you are ready to discuss things further."

* * *

I got away from that man – Shaun – as quickly as could. I didn't know where I would go or what I would do being trapped down there, but I couldn't stand to be near him for another second.

I felt so alone and betrayed. I drifted with no aim through those clinical halls that reminded me in so many ways of that despicable vault. I wandered into the open door of an apartment. It was apparent that someone lived there, but they were not home. I examined the kinds of amenities the Institute had to offer with no consideration or curiosity. That is, until I realized that there was a working shower.

With no concern for whoever this unit belonged to, I disrobed in the bathroom, pip-boy and all, and turned the faucet on. It only took a moment for steam to start escaping the tap. It enveloped me before I even set foot in the stall, and the sensation sent a wave of calm over me. I stepped into the stream of water and my legs almost gave out from the sudden relief I felt. My world, my troubles disappeared down the drain with the dirt brown water circling my bare feet.

I put one hand on the wall and just leaned forward with my head down. I stood there for what felt like an eternity. The water never ran cold.

Once my brain rebooted, I thought about all the birthdays I missed in Shaun's childhood. His entire life had gone by. He was older than me and we were nothing alike. And now he is the leader of the Commonwealth's greatest enemy. It was as though I had never had a child. It would have been easier for me if I had found him dead.

Then I thought about Nate. All this time, I never really accepted his death, because I counted on a piece of him living on in Shaun. All of that was ripped away from me without any warning. Again. It was all so very final, and I had no say in it.

To make matters worse, I realized I hadn't thought about Nate in almost two months. I had let Hancock completely fill the void of his absence, and while I was standing under the waterfall of hot, perfectly pure water, trying to cleanse myself of more than surface dirt, I wasn't sure if that was ok.

Not even an hour ago, the future had so much promise. Now, I was worse off than when I first exited the cryo-chamber. Possessively clutching Nate's wedding ring from the chain it dangled on around my neck, I replayed the moment when I rushed to his lifeless body. The despair I had denied that day suddenly caught up with me and consumed me like darkness around an extinguished flame. My trembling legs finally folded under me as I sank to the shower floor and cried the first unbridled storm of tears since all this began.

* * *

"You really did it! I can't believe it!" Sturges said, looking down at the holotape in his hands.. "Hey, wait!"

I already had my back to him, walking across the street to my house back in Sanctuary. I didn't see Hancock there when I came through the door. It was just as well. I went straight to the bedroom and collapsed face down on the bed, burying my head in the pillows. The sun was still overhead, but I just wanted this day to be over. I was out in no time.

I awoke in the middle of the night. Hancock was sitting on the bed with my head in his lap. I had no recollection of moving into this position. He was gently running fingers down my back, but I felt nothing. I shifted so his face was in view.

"How are you, my love?" He asked me with the tender, melodic tones he reserved for me only.

"Why are you still awake?" I asked flatly.

"I was taking care of you. Plus, you know, the usual side effects of my self-medication." He leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. "It's obvious something is wrong, but if you don't want to talk about it, I understand. I'm just glad you made it back safely."

I wanted to cry, but I was out of tears. "It's Shaun."

"You can tell me."

"He's not a child anymore. He's an old man."

There was a long pause. "Well," Hancock reached for my hand, "I know that's disappointing, but at least he's alive."

"He's their leader, John. The Institute calls him 'Father'."

The little bit of moonlight peeking through the tattered curtains highlighted the peaks on his uneven complexion. I could see frustration building in his expression. "Exactly how long has he been their leader?"

"Long enough."

Hancock was still holding my hand, but he turned his head away from me.

Now was as good a time as any, I supposed. "John," I let go of his hand and sat up. "Mayor MacDonough was replaced by a synth. I read it on a terminal in the Institute."

I could almost feel the angry buzzing radiating through him. "I fucking knew it." He got up and started digging through the nightstand until he found an inhaler that still had some jet left in it. He sat in a chair in the corner and took a short, hard breath out of the inhaler, coughing slightly. "I was mad at my brother for so long. For all the wrong reasons." He drew the bright flash of a match to his face, lighting a cigarette. "That synth probably murdered my brother when he took his place. I should have killed that piece of shit when I had the chance."

"I'm so sorry." I didn't know what else to say.

"Don't be. There's nothing you could have done."

We just sat there in silence. My eyes were adjusted to the dark, and I could see the whole room almost perfectly. I examined everything around me, pissed that the Institute had so much down there that they were keeping from the citizens of the Commonwealth - advanced food production and medicine, improved weapons and technology, nice mattresses with real blankets, plumbing and warm tap water. All those resources were wasted on mass producing gen 3 synths and using them either as slaves or replacements for our loved ones. Before then, I didn't really buy into the Railroad's rhetoric, but it finally made some sense in that perspective.

What was the point of any of this anymore? All this time, I had been preparing for the return of my child, but I came back empty handed. What little plans I had for the future were shattered. I wasn't working towards anything anymore. Hancock was the only thing I had left. I leaned over to the nightstand and reached for an inhaler. I shook it the way I'd seen Hancock do so many times before, measuring the weight of substance inside. I looked across the room at him. He was in the edge of his chair, watching my every move. I put it up to my face and took the whole thing in.

"Feliiiiinnnaaaaaaa…."

It hit me instantly. Everything slowed to a crawl and all the ambient white noise in the air suddenly had the volume turned up on it. It felt like ice water raced through my veins, chased by a warm sensation. Every muscle in my body released its tension at once, and I felt like I was weightless, but not the kind of restricted weightlessness I got from wearing power armor. It felt like if I let go of the bed, I would float away.

Hancock got up from his chair and reached out to me, but his movement appeared blurred and sluggish. When he was close enough, he grabbed me by my shoulders. His touch felt insanely deep like his hands had sank into my skin and were touching my bones.

"Aaaarrreee yyoouu ooookkkk?"

I nodded, ever sooo slowly. I lifted my arms into my field of vision in the same lethargic manner as every other movement around me and watched them as I explored the sensation of making and releasing fists. "Wwwooooooooooowww!" The low-pitched, drawn out sound of my voice caught me off guard, and I let out an equally funny sounding laugh in response.

Hancock chuckled, too.

He leaned in to kiss me, and the feeling of it was intense. We stayed engulfed in each other like that until the jet started to wear off. I could tell by the way everything started to regain its normal pace that I was coming down, and it was followed by a headache creeping like drying concrete into the back of my skull. I suddenly felt heavy again.

Hancock was grinning wide. "Is this going to be a regular thing now?"

I already had the urge to do it again. "No sé. Maybe."

Hancock pulled me close. "And I thought you couldn't be any more perfect for me. Guess I was wrong."


	10. Chems

I was ultrasensitive to the speckles of midday sun that broke through the tattered bedroom curtains. This wasn't your average hangover. I was chilled throughout and hurt in impossible places. I felt as though I had lost a fight with an alpha deathclaw while having the flu. My bones creaked as I felt around beside me on the mattress for Hancock, but I didn't find him. I faintly smelled food in the next room, so he must have been cooking. Even though it seemed like my bed was made of quicksand, I managed to pull myself up and put my bathrobe on.

I shuffled into the living room like an old lady, feet dragging the floor. Hancock was shirtless, standing over the stove stirring a simmering pot.

He saw me standing there and gave me a sly grin. "Good, you're up. Sorry, I only heated up some leftovers. We have a lot to do today."

"I'm not really up for much excitement, today, actually," I remarked, still squinting at the daylight.

"Oh, but you will be. Check my jacket pocket. The left one." He motioned with a wooden spoon to the stool at the bar that his red frock coat was draped over.

The first thing I found was his cigarettes. I was pretty sure that's not what he was after since he already had a lit one in his mouth. I took one for myself and lit it with his matchbook. After a little digging, I found his mentats. "Is this what you wanted?" I was holding the tin up in the air with the hand I wasn't using to hold my robe closed. I moved towards him to hand them over.

"Yeah, they ain't for me, though. I'm already set. Here." He handed me a cup of black coffee, and continued flitting about the kitchen like a hummingbird. "So you have something to wash them down."

I looked down at the tin in my hand. "No, really, I just woke up, and…I don't know."

He stopped moving and looked at me earnestly. "Feel like your head's been stamped by a brahmin?"

"Pretty much."

"The mentats will take care of that. You can take two, but don't take any more than that." He went back to what he was doing.

I sat at the table with my coffee and set the tin down in front of me, staring at it. I pulled an ashtray to me from across the table and perched my cigarette on the edge. Picking the tin back up, I turned it over and over, idly fiddling with it as I thought, _Yeah, fuck it_. I opened it up, carefully pinched two between my fingers, and then snapped the lid shut with a satisfying click. Blowing on the top of my coffee, I took a sip and held it in mouth, tilted my head back, and tossed the two little white tablets down my throat while simultaneously swallowing the coffee.

"That's my girl," Hancock said in low, quiet gravel. "You'll feel better in about twenty minutes. Until then," he placed a bowl of stew in front of me, "have some food. It's best not to take them on an empty stomach." He sat across from me with his own bowl.

By the time we were done eating, the mentats had swung into full effect. All of my negative symptoms had dulled, and I was extremely alert without being jittery.

Hancock cleared the table and fetched a small briefcase from the bar. He set it down in front of him at the table and opened it. He turned the case around and slid it over to me. Inside was a disturbingly organized pharmacy. "Now, I know you've picked up on some knowledge from pushing and being around me, but I need to make sure you know everything if you're going to fuck with chems. I need to know you ain't gonna hurt yourself or overdose. I need to know you know these things for my own peace of mind. Feel me?"

After breakfast, he wasted no time getting right to it. Still working on a cup of coffee, I was in nothing but my bathrobe and Hancock had never gotten past putting his pants and tricorn hat on for the day. The ghoul spent the better part of an hour, or maybe even more, going over safe dosages and combos. In that time frame, I had passed the peak of my high from my morning mentats, and it had evened out pleasantly. It made me acutely aware of how soft the robe was on my bare skin, and even enhanced the enjoyment of my coffee and cigarettes as I listened intently to Hancock's instruction.

The gentle ride from the mentats had me floating like I was in a canoe on a placid lake. It was just smooth enough to tell it was there without being intrusive, like classical music on quietly in the background. But I didn't get to savor it any longer than that. It was time for my first sample combination.

Hancock slid a dose of jet to me from across the table. His fingers withdrew from the inhaler, revealing the enticing, candy-like red of the canister. "It's gonna be different this time."

I tentatively reached for the chem. "How?"

He took a hit himself from the case. "You'll see."

I brought the inhaler to my mouth and emptied my lungs with a long breath before taking in the jet's contents. It hit me instantly, the first moment feeling like the familiar euphoria from the previous night, but that sensation quickly faded as it mingled with the mentat high.

My canoe dissolved and my classical symphony developed a steady backbeat. The imaginary concert took hold of me, driven by punctuated bass and snare, overlapping thickly with dissonant, haunting vocals, harmonious strings vibrating in reverse, and ivory keys all reverberated and echoing as though I was in a tunnel.

I kicked back in my chair, bringing my feet to the table's edge. My robe spilled open momentarily as I shifted positions, but I pulled the edge of the fabric closed, sprawling my arms across the back of the chair. "I wish you could hear what's going on in my head right now."

"I already know, love. I hear it all the time."

The melding of melodies and music ran through a filter and distorted into one piece so full, it filled all of my personal space, beating in time with my heart. Its organic rhythm held me together and every sound it made served a function inside me, somehow keeping me alive, but I couldn't move under its immensity. It was warm and tingly and blue and purple all at once, like a clear summer night.

"There's no way you could be hearing this, too."

As if to prove me wrong, he started rocking his head back and forth in sync with the percussion I was feeling with every molecule of my body.

"How are you doing that?"

"I told you, I hear it, too."

"There's no way." The beating grew harder and my hand instinctively reached for my chest. "I'm not going to die, am I?"

He shook his head. "No. That's what this session is all about, Felina. You already know that is a safe dose, and you know you'll be fine. Don't ya?"

I listened carefully to the music again and began to calm down. "Yeah, it's…it's actually making me…"

"What?"

"Making me wish I had a way to make music right now. I don't even know how, but I feel like if I had an instrument, I could… It wouldn't be this good though."

Hancock stood up from the table and drifted to me, sucked closer by every breath I took. He grasped my hand with his and pulled me up out of the chair. "You can be a part of it in another way."

He started waltzing with me slowly. The imaginary music seamlessly morphed into an appropriate rhythm and tempo with my movements, and my body knew just how to move with it. When he pulled me closer, the little bit of my skin the robe left uncovered met Hancock's naked chest, and I became conscious of the friction between our flesh as we danced. I gazed up into his bottomless, ebony eyes and felt like we were the same magical being. "John…"

"Shhh," he beckoned me. "Just feel it right now… this moment…"

We spun in soft circles, our feet never touching the floor. More accurately, it seemed like we were still and the world was revolving around us. I could feel past the walls to every living thing beyond the Sanctuary house all the way to the sun and the moon sharing the rich indigo atmosphere. I was everyone, and the universe was me…and Hancock. We were guiding the stars, and the fate of all time was in our hands.

Until it started to fade.

I felt the crinkle of skin folding together between my eyebrows as I glared at the unseen forces taking it all away from me. The mentats started to dominate me once more, but they didn't seem as innocuous as before, pushing urgent thoughts into my head as though they were panicking at the loss of their fleeting friend, jet.

Hancock was leading me back to the chair, gently placing me in it as the ephemeral effects of the jet wore off. He leaned forward into my face, meeting my involuntary scowl with a warm smile. "You in there, sister?"

I rubbed a couple fingers at the side of my head. "Yeah. I'm back."

He pressed his lips to my forehead and returned to his chair across from me. "You ready for your next lesson?"

I was trying to squint the unpleasant emptiness away. "I may need a minute... Or another hit."

"Nope." He flipped the chem case closed, ignoring my request. "That's your next lesson, love. The chems don't control you. You control them, ya dig?"

He made me go over and repeat back to him the information he taught me all afternoon. He didn't let up until he was satisfied that I was a textbook expert on being a functional junkie.

Late in the day, once he was content with the knowledge I had retained, he drew things to a close, scooting his chair back. "You've been an excellent pupil." He patted his leg. "Why don't ya come sit in teacher's lap and take your final?"

I stood up, a little loopy from the various traces of chemicals I had lingering in my system. With nothing on underneath, I let my robe drape open and sauntered over to Hancock. He narrowed his eyes at the strip of my exposed skin and exhaled deeply. I put a leg around his waist and eased onto his lap with my arms loosely extended over his bare shoulders. I drew my other leg around, encircling him like a spider would her prey.

He selected a syringe of med-x from the table and gently placed it in my palm. "I want you to administer that to me."

With slow, calculated movements, I did exactly as asked. I tied his arm off with surgical tubing from his case and tapped his arm. When I pushed the plunger in and released the tubing, I felt his body shudder underneath me as he let out a soft moan.

He removed another syringe from the table and injected it into the sensitive area of my inner arm. I never would have thought it, but there was something so incredibly intimate about doing that for each other. I let out an orgasmic gasp when the needle broke my skin and leaned my head back in pleasure as it exploded through my body. He put his hands on my hips and held me steady.

When I bowed forward again, he lined his face up to mine, not quite touching. "How's that feel, love?"

"Mmmmm, better." I closed the distance between us with a deep kiss, kick-starting his desire. I could feel his raw strength as his hands drew up my torso, gripping and grabbing as if to consume me. He lifted me up and pinned my back against the wall, holding me there with my legs dangling, never breaking his mouth's connection to me. He kept arching into me, taunting the warmth between my legs with the bulge restrained by his pants. Since he wasn't letting me down, all I could do was relent to enjoying the ride.

When he finally lowered my feet to the ground, I tried to reach for his buckle on his pants, but my legs suddenly couldn't hold me up. He caught me before I collapsed. I tried to work at that buckle again, but he pulled my arms up over my head, pushing me against the wall once more with his lips trailing my neck. My head was swimming – from the chems, from the yearning I had for him, from the anticipation of what it would be like when he finally gave me what I wanted... My head was filled with prophetic thoughts of the dirty things we were about to do when, out of nowhere, the warmth of climax began radiating through me. It seemed impossible.

"Ah! Ah, John!" He pulled me away from the wall, holding me tightly against him. As the orgasm ripped through me, I let my head fall backwards, his hand on my back keeping me stable. I felt like I was plunging into the earth, and the only thing that was keeping me from being convinced of this was the feeling of Hancock's body clinging to mine. I slowly brought my head back up. "How did you do that?" I gasped, lightheaded.

He had a cocky smile on his face. "I dunno, love."

My fingers were mindlessly traveling down to my still pulsing center, eager for more. I felt fuzzy all over. "The chems?"

He stopped my hand and brought it up between us, intertwining our fingers. "Chems can't do that on their own. And I've hardly gotten started..." He said, lilting and lauded. "I must really got ya hot and bothered."

"Damn right, you do." I seized his lips in mine, toiling to restrain my needy tongue that was trying to go down his throat. With concentration and control, I glided it with sensuous little licks, carefully catching hold of his bottom lip and sucking. My roving palms embraced his bare, damaged form, voracious for the feel of him. Softly growling, he was steering us toward the couch as I hungrily tasted him.

There were slight gaps in my awareness as my chemical high flirted with my passion, making it seem like I was transported to the cushions in an instant with Hancock floating over me. My robe was gone, and I couldn't recall shedding it. His pants were gone, too, but I wasn't about to complain.

My extremities were tingling with desire as I clutched blindly at him. The gaps in my memory flashed intermittently and every time I could focus, his mouth was on a different place - my neck, my breast, my belly, inside my wrist, my thigh - a blaze of bliss blossoming from every contact he made on my flesh. I could only witness each touch for a moment before my perception lapsed, but the sensations lingered, spreading across my skin like a ripple from a raindrop in a puddle, enveloping me as the edges ran together.

His rough hands never stopped moving over me, my body instinctively clinging to his touch as though he were controlling me by strings. The good itch from the med-x was starting to take hold, and the uneven texture of his skin on mine only teasingly scratched at it, leaving me wanting.

I writhed as the wet warmth between my legs was building to an unbearable pitch. His hands stopped abruptly at my waist, holding me still. He brought his face back home to mine, looking deep into my eyes, and unexpectedly, I felt the unseen but much welcomed pressure of him entering me with no further assistance needed. The fulfilling sensation of being split in two by his mass surrealistically swirled into the feeling of being pulled back together and joined with him as one.

I drew in a reprieved breath, and my back arched as I pushed my hips up into him harder.

Fully sheathed, he paused and lowered on top of me, wrapping himself around me. I sank back down into the couch at the pressure. He became still and spoke quietly by my ear, his head buried in the crook of my neck. "Felina…"

"Yes, John?"

He sighed a moan, and I felt him twitch inside me. "I love you so much."

A shiver shot up my spine. "Mmm… I love you."

"You're the best thing I got," he purred. "You make me feel so… wanted…"

He had been motionless too long and I started to ache. "Please, John."

"Please, what?"

Static was crackling in my ears as I tried to pull him impossibly closer. "Make me feel good."

He twitched again as a soft growl rumbled from his scarred chest. He practically whispered in a deep, quiet gravel, "Anything for you." He began to grind into me in steady rhythm with my ravenous throbbing, giving me the relief I desperately desired. My eyes were mostly closed as I became fixated solely on my sense of touch. I was driven further and further from reality with every euphoric plunge he made inside of me. It was intense and powerful and almost too much to handle.

When my eyes opened again, he slowed to a stop, asking me, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I replied, almost choked up.

"Are you okay?" He reached for my face, wiping wetness off my cheek with a course finger. "Are those…tears?"

"No, mi amor… I mean, yeah. I'm better than okay." I tried to pull him back down on me. "It just feels so good."

With a shocked look on his face, he hesitantly continued. "That's a first for me…"

With him back at task, my rising tension began to be reflected in the enthusiasm of my moans that soon turned to unrestrained cries of his name. Amidst my fevered bawling, he sat up and reached behind him, unwrapping my legs from his back and resting them in front of him on his stout shoulders. I brought them closer to my chest, driving him deeper still into my core.

He grabbed hold of my ankles as his eyes lit up with amusement. "Pretty limber." Bracing himself on my legs that I was gradually spreading wider, he began to quicken his pace.

I couldn't take it anymore. I cried out for him, even louder than before as my release came moving me with thunder. He continued relentlessly with his gaze locked on me, satisfyingly drinking in the most certainly unflattering faces I was making as my body shuddered and shivered well into the aftershocks.

With his last few thrusts, his eyes fluttered closed, and he spilled into my still palpitating walls. Once he was finished, he pulled out, and we crumpled up into a tired, messy heap, stuck to the couch in our own various fluids.

As we both gasped for air, my shattered brain was sifting through the internal chaos in an attempt to speak. I mumbled something incoherent - even to me - into his shoulder.

He separated from me slightly, his brow furrowed as he looked over me. "What's that, love?"

"…More."

He didn't respond right away. Probably a result of his own brain lag. "It's too soon for another hit."

I shook my head. "No, not that." I pressed my lips to his as I sent my hand on a mission downstairs to find our missing connection.

With his mouth occupied by mine, he made a muffled chuckle as I palmed between his legs. He pulled away from our kiss and smirked. "Can I have a minute first? I'm all for another round, but ya gotta wait for the bell, if you catch my meaning."

I replied without thinking, "Well…then…another hit?" My addictive personality was starting to show.

He sighed remorsefully. "Can't do it."

I read the worry and frustration on his face and could tell he was already regretting endorsing my chem use. "Not med-x, mi amor," I said, trying to ease his troubled mind. "The jet."

His expression softened some. "That might be alright, …if you're willing to share." Still perched above my naked form, he reached into his pants on the floor beside us and pulled an inhaler from his pocket. He gently shook the chem before bringing it to his face and breathing in the drug. Tossing the canister to the floor, he brought his mouth over mine and gently blew the vapors into my face.

I sucked at the stream of mist with his pursed lips a fraction of an inch away from mine. When his breath tapered off, he brought them in for a landing, submerging me into the divine full-body kiss that is only capable of being forged through the chem. My world grinded to a halt in that moment, lasting almost as long as the forever I wished it could have been.

When he withdrew, the lazy smile of arousal was returning to his face. "I think I'm ready for round two, now."

"Good. I could do this all night."

"That's the idea, love."

* * *

When I woke up, Hancock was the first thing I laid my eyes on. He was reclined on his side next to me in bed and had been awake for a while, watching me sleep.

"Morning, sunshine," he greeted me.

I smiled at him through the discomforting side effects of the night's heavy partying.

"Can I get you anything, love?" He reached to the nightstand behind him. His hand hovered over the assortment of paraphernalia that littered its surface, and he decisively went for the mentats. "Here."

I downed a couple tabs with a swig of vodka from the open bottle on the floor beside the bed.

"Once you are feeling up to it," Hancock began, "We still have some responsibilities to take care of."

The alcohol burned on the way down, and I winced as I swallowed. "Do what now?"

"Did you get the anti-mutagen?"

"Oh, that. It's in my bag." I took another biting swig from the vodka. "If it's all the same to you, I'm not really in the mood for a trip to the Glowing Sea."

Hancock crawled on top of me. "I know what you're in the mood for," he said, grinding into me. "But we have a reputation to uphold. We can't allow carnal pleasures to distract us from our purpose."

Helping Virgil was the furthest thing from my mind. I had tried to keep Nate and the Institute even further, but another lesson I had learned the previous night was that even the best chems and sex can only keep undesirable thoughts at bay for so long.

To have my son in my life, I would have to join his cause - a cause I didn't believe in. While on the other hand I would have to continue playing the Commonwealth martyr if I wanted to keep Hancock happy. No matter how I looked at it, I couldn't find a way to keep both of them. And then there was Nate. I never properly grieved for him, and it was starting to happen now, of all times, making me feel dirty for the time I spent with Hancock.

I squirmed uncomfortably. "I don't know if I can do this anymore."

Hancock's face contorted. "Do what?"

"Mmnnnm," My head was pounding and it was hard to form complete thoughts. "Take down the Institute."

Hancock rocked backwards off me and onto his knees, idly fumbling through the nightstand drawer full of spent canisters of jet. He was scowling. "Is that all?" he said bitterly.

"Isn't there some other way to…I don't know…Couldn't we try turning them to our side?"

"Sure. No problem. And don't forget about the Brotherhood of Steel. We could hold a peace summit in Diamond City. We could serve punch and pie and all hold hands and sing."

"Alright, alright, you don't have to get shitty." I sat up, holding the blanket over my bare chest.

Hancock glared at me. "What are you doing?"

"What?"

He grabbed the edge of the blanket and tugged at it gently. "Why are you hiding?"

"I'm not hiding," I said defensively, while instinctively holding more tightly onto the blanket. "This conversation just got kinda…nasty."

"No shit." He removed a canister of jet and sucked it empty. He carelessly tossed it to the floor and began getting dressed.

"Please, Hancock…" I heard him growl quietly at the sound of his unfamiliar name. "I don't want to fight. I'm just emotional. Destroying the Institute has implications. Shaun…my son-"

He snapped at me. "That's not your son! That's the Institute's son! They killed your husband and my brother! They don't care about you or me or anyone. They will murder anyone that stands in the way of them controlling us." He had never snapped at me before.

My feelings were only hurt for a moment before I defaulted to rage. "You wouldn't understand what it's like being a parent! I carried him inside of me for nine months! When a child grows inside of you, _that_ becomes your new life. Protecting and caring for him. And everything you do from then on is governed by that!"

"He ain't a child anymore, Felina. Helping him means ruining everything that is still good in this world. Is that what you want? I got news for you, sweetheart. Helping him now won't make you a mom. It just makes you a monster like them."

"So I'm a monster for loving my son?"

"No, right now you're just a mess. You're a monster if you help them." He sighed heavily as he put his tricorn hat on. "You ain't actually considering it, are you? Because that ain't what I signed on for."

"I don't know." I replied meekly. "It's a lot to take in right now."

He tossed my dress at me. "Figure it out." Then he stormed out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

I reached into the open drawer, shaking every spent canister only to find nothing. Frustrated, I yanked the drawer out with a grunt, dumping its contents to the floor. The drawer flew into the wall opposite the bed and broke with a thud. I thrashed and kicked the inhalers as I pulled my dress over my head with such force, the seams nearly came undone.

The racket I was making caused Hancock to come back to the bedroom. He looked down at the mess on the floor and then shot me a pissed off look. "What the fuck, Felina?"

"What?!" I screamed.

"You have a problem." He said, pointing at me.

"Oh, excuse me, the junkie thinks I have a drug problem, is that it?"

"No, you have an anger problem, and I ain't gotta take this." He turned to leave.

"Where are you going?"

"For a goddamn walk! Is that ok with you?"

"Why don't you walk your ass back to Goodneighbor and stay there!"

The anger drained from his face instantly. "You don't mean that." He said gently.

My own rage started to dissipate and I filled with sorrow as the reality of my words sunk in. "…Maybe you should," I remarked quietly.

We both stood there across from each other in silence for entirely too long.

"Is that really what you want?" His voice was low and even.

"I don't know what I want. That's why maybe you should."

His eyes were fixed on my hand where I had been unconsciously twisting my wedding ring ever since we had stopped yelling. "I see." He carefully reached past me into my waist pouch that was draped over the chair and removed Virgil's serum. He held it up between two fingers, examining it in the light, before shoving it into his bag. He shouldered his bag and walked back towards the door. "Goodbye, Felina."

I stood there, frozen. The mentats were just starting to kick in as I saw his shadow move outside past the window. All of my anger and doubt faded, replaced with the chemical's euphoria. I flung the curtains aside and called out to him from the window, "John, wait!"

I know he heard me, but he didn't stop. He kept moving, stiff and determined with his head down. The people of Sanctuary were beginning to take notice of the situation. I quickly closed the curtains and window. I wanted to go after him, but what good would that do? All he needed was a reason to run, and I gave it to him. And then I would have to face the nosy settlers. I just wanted to hide away forever.

I tore my way to the bathroom and into the medicine cabinet. I grabbed at a bottle of pills inside and swallowed a couple. Didn't matter to me what they were. When I shut the cabinet, I was faced with my reflection in the door's mirror. I punched that pinche piece of glass one good time, shattering it and spilling blood and shards everywhere. I held my shredded, shaking hand up to my face and marveled at how I couldn't feel a thing.

I laughed. I don't know why I laughed, but I did, all the while, tears building up, which only made the whole thing funnier. Blood, broken glass, tears. Fucking hilarious.

_"We freaks gotta stick together. And the best way to stick together is to keep an eye out for what drives us apart, you feel me? Now what out there in our big friendly Commonwealth would want to drive us apart? What kind of twisted, un-neighborly boogeyman would want to hurt our peaceful community?_

_The Institute! They're the real enemy! Not the raiders, not the super mutants, not even those tools over in Diamond City. When someone starts acting funny, when people start doing things they don't normally do, when family starts pushing you away for no reason, we all know who's behind that kind of shit. And the only way to stop it is to stick together."_


	11. Rock Bottom

Dogmeat was my companion now. He was loyal and a tenacious fighter. He didn't judge me when I swiped someone else's belongings. Nor when I took another hit of jet before the last one wore off. And he didn't judge me for running a few errands for the Institute.

They installed a relay in my pip-boy so I could come and go as I please and gave me my own apartment, but I didn't much care for staying there. It made me extremely uncomfortable. The only thing it was good for in my opinion was the shower.

The kinds of missions I was being sent on for the Institute scientists seemed pretty harmless, if not dull and pointless busy work. Go here and retrieve a blueprint. Go there and extract a tissue sample. Occasionally, Shaun had me sit in on some board meetings. I had to go reclaim a runaway synth, which didn't seem so bad either, since the only casualties were the raiders on the Libertalia shipwreck, which I would have killed anyway. Fuck raiders.

At one point, I was sent to Warwick Homestead to deliver some engineered seeds to an undercover synth named Roger. Once I was there, he asked for my help, claiming that people around the settlement were starting to become suspicious of him. I tried explaining to him that something like that was outside of my scope of work, but he wasn't getting the message. I didn't really care one way or the other, but I told him I would help so he would leave me alone. I half-assed asked around town to try to get a handle on the situation. I uncovered a solution, but it would have required me to track down a guy who went to Goodneighbor, so I completely abandoned that task. I think the settlers at Warwick eventually killed Roger. Not my problem.

After a couple months, I quit going back to Sanctuary altogether, because it was getting harder to look Preston and Sturges in the eye when they talked about how evil the Institute was. And believe me, this is a subject people do not shut up about. Preston would mark the location of a new settlement on my map, and I would nod that I'm right on it, with no intentions of ever going there. I think they were on the verge of holding an intervention, since I was not hiding my chem use. None of their business.

When I wasn't traveling, I stayed in an unassuming house near the CIT ruins where a friend of mine, Phoebe, lived before the war. It was mostly caved in and a downright mess, but it was the closest thing I had to home. I was running out of fucks to give.

Meanwhile, tensions in the Commonwealth were on the rise. Shaun called me to his office to brief me on an impending siege at Bunker Hill over some runaway synths. What little I knew about the Railroad included knowledge of their use of the trading post in their campaign for the liberation of synths, but I was not the one who informed the Institute. It could have been any number of scouts they already had in the field. I pretended to be surprised. I'm not very good at lying, but since I was high all the time, no one ever really thought twice about my erratic behavior. Me vale madres.

I was to meet courser X4-18 in an alley outside Bunker Hill. I made it to the alley and didn't see him, so I took the opportunity to get loaded. The sun was almost gone and I stared up at the full moon on the rise between the ramshackle buildings. The weather was mild and warm, just the way I like it, but I wasn't enjoying it.

I sat there in the dark and dirt, thinking about how empty my life was as my bloodstream burned. I had some reservations about this mission. I didn't really consider myself an ally of the Railroad, but I had no intentions of ever harming them.

Dogmeat had laid his head in my lap and was looking up at me with concern.

"Oh, great, now you're judging me, too?"

He whimpered.

"Of course you are."

He got up and started walking away, looking back at me every few feet.

"So I guess you're going to leave, too. Well, I can't stop you."

He whimpered and let out a sharp bark, and then he took off around a corner.

Out of curiosity, I went to the corner to watch him go, but saw he was standing there, beside X4-18. "Oh-"

"I've been waiting for you," the courser said to me.

"Yeah, sorry. The line at the car wash was super long. Took me forever." A volatile chuckle left my mouth, sounding like a stranger to my own ears.

His face was emotionless. "Your attempt at humor is wasted. Our targets are inside: four synths under Railroad protection. Majority of the settlement is uninvolved and expected to run for cover."

I heard the unmistakable sound of vertibird blades beating in the distance, and I looked up at the sky. "Why is the Brotherh-?"

"The situation appears to have escalated," he observed. "A covert approach is likely impossible. We move in, secure the synths, and I relay out with them back to the Institute. Clear?"

He didn't wait for my response. He immediately began radioing in for help as he took off toward the hill. I followed with uncertainty. As I rounded the corner and Bunker Hill came into view, my eyes were met with the first full on war I had ever seen up close. Early gen Institute synths were materializing, Brotherhood of Steel soldiers were dropping from vertibirds, and Railroad agents were posted by the gates, all engaged in combat.

I stayed close to X4-18's heels with my gun drawn, firing at no one while bullets and lasers whizzed past me from every direction. Members of every faction were dropping like flies. I was an easy target but no one was actually firing at me. It occurred to me that every one of them probably perceived me as their ally.

X4-18 took a knee to steady his aim and I just stood behind him, motionless and in awe among the fire, a cocktail of jet, med-x, and buffout coursing through me. My ears began to ring and the sounds of battle were muffled and distorted, like it was just some movie on a TV in the other room.

_Who am I?_

Dogmeat was tensely poised at my ankle, wide eyed and desperately searching me for a cue.

I drew my barrel downward with the slow-motion movements one can only achieve with jet and deliberately pulled the trigger, sending a bullet into the back of X4-18's skull. He slumped forward and I stood over him, unfettered by any of the chaos around me. After I had soaked in all the carnage I cared to for one day, I began strolling away from the battle. No one cared.

The battle continued on behind me, the sounds drowned out by my own audible pulse, but still measurable by the vibrations in the ground. I didn't matter. The factions would have fought, with or without me, and their continuation in my abstinence from the firefight was proof. Why should any of this matter to me?

* * *

It was late, and I was lying awake on the mattress in the dark at Phoebe's pre-war home, listening to Diamond City Radio and trying to concentrate on the good itch that was becoming more and more elusive the longer I did chems. Travis had just finished reporting on Bunker Hill. It seems the synths had made it out alright.

"And in other news... Now this can't be confirmed, but there are rumors that the vault-dwelling superhero of the wastes has been making waves in the Brotherhood of Steel. It's been suggested that some key personnel has either left or been forced out of the organization. I'm not usually one to speculate, but if this is true, it could signal some changes in the Brotherhood's course of action. All you can do is stay tuned and find out."

Dogmeat began to growl quietly.

"What is it, boy?"

He began to growl louder as his ears stood up. I quietly reached for my gun.

I saw movement in the hallway. I began to sit up, and I slowly pulled back the hammer on my pistol with a barely audible click. I pointed it at the doorway. I could see the outline of someone in power armor heading my way and heard the whir of a laser weapon warming up. Dogmeat began to bark.

"Put your weapon down," a female said in that tinny power armor voice.

"No, you first," I replied. "This is my house and I have a right to defend it."

"You and I both know that this is not your house."

I knew that, but how did she? "Yeah, well, I was friends with the previous owner, and she would have wanted me to have it."

"She's still alive, you know."

"What?"

"Phoebe. She lives in the Slog now. I'm surprised you didn't know, given the company you keep, Felina. It's a community comprised entirely of ghouls."

"Who the fuck _are_ you?" I lit the lantern on the floor beside me, and the girl lowered her weapon and took her helmet off. "Lynn?! How-?"

Lynn was my neighbor in Sanctuary before the war. Her husband was also in the military, and we did everything together back then. Our families always went to each other's barbeques on holidays. Sometimes we went shopping together, or got our hair done, and all those other kinds of wifely things you do when you are domesticated. That kind of girly stuff never really appealed to me, and I didn't have to pretend it did to fit in in this world. I wasn't sure we would have much in common in this new setting.

"Same as you. I escaped the vault, only you were already gone by the time I thawed out."

I shook my head in disbelief. "I opened every pod and checked every terminal before I left. Everyone was unresponsive and the readouts said you were all dead."

Dogmeat had relaxed, and she leaned over to pet him. "I guess I was still frozen when you checked on me."

I tried to recall the events from day one, but my mind immediately went back to Nate laying there in his pod, dead. "I was pretty disoriented and upset when I came out. I suppose I could have overlooked that."

"I guess that means you saved me, so …thanks."

I probably would have been more excited to see her if I wasn't so out of it. I felt a pang of that good itch for a moment, but it went away before I could scratch it. "Did you know I was here?"

"The Brotherhood of Steel sent me to find you because you never returned. That's kind of my thing. I recently had to track down Paladin Danse…" She pushed her long chestnut tresses out of her face. "So you work for the Institute now. So what then? Were you just spying on the Brotherhood for them?"

"What? No! I just… Not that I have to explain myself to you, but it's complicated."

"You probably should, though. I was sent here to terminate you."

"C'mon, really? I thought we were friends."

She raised her laser rifle.

"Whoa! Okay." I waved my hands in front of me. "I needed a suit of power armor so that I could make a trip to the Glowing Sea. They can have it back if they want. I never came back because I don't agree with the Brotherhood's views on ghouls, alright? That's really all there is to it."

She smiled. "Relax, I'm just messing with ya." She put her rifle away.

"So the Brotherhood aren't really pissed at me?"

"Oh, yeah, they are _so_ mad," she chuckled. "But I don't care. They're a bunch of racists."

I was having trouble following what was going on. "So you're not really one of them?"

"Well, technically I am a member of their forces, but I don't do anything I object to. I'm trying to change them. From the inside. See, when I got out of the vault, I had nothing left. Everyone I knew was dead. I'm sure you can relate…"

"Yeah," I said with some interest. _Where is she going with this?_

"But destiny let me live for whatever reason, so I made it my business to right as many wrongs in the Commonwealth that I can."

"You must be the vault dweller I keep hearing about in Travis's news reports."

"Travis is a good kid. I helped him out with a couple problems a while back."

I thought back to all the things Deacon had assumed I did. "I've been mistaken for you before. I don't think anyone around here knows the difference between us."

"I don't really care who gets credit for the good deeds, as long as they are getting done." She looked down at the paraphernalia littering the floor. "Hey, are you doing all right?"

"Yeah," I said a little defensively.

"As your friend, I am obligated to tell you, you look like shit."

"Nice to see you, too, Lynn." I said resentfully. "Qué _fresa_ …"

"I don't mean anything by it. I'm just looking out for ya. So, if you're not working for the Institute, then what _are_ you doing?"

I was silent a little too long as I thought about that. "Regrouping. I've suffered a few…setbacks…recently."

"I was hoping I would eventually catch up with you. I heard some good things about you. Don't give up hope. We can make a difference in this world, ya know? If you ever need anything, just ask the Railroad. They usually know where to find me."

"The Railroad?"

"Yeah, I've got some things to do, but I'll tell Phoebe you said hi. And Hancock, if he comes by to visit again…" She started to turn towards the door.

"Wait!" I reached my hand out. "You spoke with Hancock?"

"Yeah, he brought the Railroad a copy of that intel you got from the Institute a while back. Said you owed it to them."

I felt a crushing pain in my chest. "How is he?"

"He seemed fine. He expressed an interest in traveling together, but I had to tell him no. I don't think I could put up with his flirty nature for an extended period of time. He told me you used to travel with him. I don't know how you did it," she added jokingly.

He flirted with her. The bite of jealousy I felt coupled with the chest pain knocked the wind out of me, and I winced.

Lynn must have noticed, as a look of realization spread across her face. "I guess I could stay a little longer." She exited her power armor and sat in a nearby chair. "So, what was it like inside the Institute?"

My eyes were darting between her and the drugs on the floor. I could've really used a hit right then. "Exactly what you would expect. Just clean, bright, and cold." I decided the mentats would probably get me the least backlash for doing in front of Lynn and swallowed a couple.

I could tell she was trying to hide her disappointment. "I suppose I should thank you personally for loading that holotape. That's how I found out Danse was a synth."

"¡No mames! You mean the Brotherhood's golden boy is the very thing they taught him to hate?"

"Yes… He didn't know. He didn't take it well at first. It took a hell of a lot of convincing, but I was able to talk him into leaving the BoS and joining the Railroad, which is great because he's a powerful ally…He's not bad-looking either," she added with a playful smile.

We sat and talked for a while, and it almost felt like old times. It was getting close to dawn when my pip-boy began to blink. I flipped through its interface and saw I had received a message to meet Shaun on top of the CIT ruins.

"Hey, Lynn. I have something I need to go take care of…"

"I understand. I should be going anyway. Seriously, though, remember what I said. You should keep fighting the good fight. I know I will."

"Yeah, well, we'll see."

"Really, Felina. The wasteland has enough villains. Make sure you're not one of them."

* * *

Dogmeat and I only had to take down a couple super mutants to climb the stairs of the CIT rotunda. It was nothing. I had no sense of mortality as I sloppily fired bullets in the direction of the towering, bulky green masses. One was staggered by my shots, and Dogmeat dove on him, tearing his throat out with killer instincts. He lunged for the other one's enormous calf, clamping down on a chunk of flesh, flinging it back and forth in his jaws until it ripped loose. The super mutant growled in agony, and I carelessly ventilated him until the two of us were dripping in hot blood.

They had been fighting us with ridiculously thrown together nail boards, so they didn't even have any useful loot on them. _Fucking brutes_. I tried to kick their oversized corpses down the stairs, but they were too heavy. We climbed over them to the roof's door.

I stepped out into the open air of the rooftop and gasped at the oxygen like I had forgotten to breathe until now. Dogmeat shook vigorously, slinging splatters of blood in all directions. I flicked the blood off my face with a quick jerk of my palm and could hear the droplets hit the concrete at my feet.

The sunrise was pumping a hint of light over the city skyline and some wispy pink and red clouds bled into the sky. I saw Shaun's figure standing near the edge, overlooking the wasted ruins below. Dogmeat and I approached him, and he began speaking without breaking his stare on the Commonwealth.

"You know, in all my years I have never set foot outside of the Institute. Not once. But now, this just confirms the truth I've always known. The Commonwealth is dead."

"Oh, it's not that bad! People manage."

He looked at my blood-soaked clothes with a bit of disgust. "Perhaps. But at costs too great to be worth it."

I self-consciously wiped some more blood off my arms.

He turned toward me, his face solemn. "I know to you I was kidnapped from that vault, but in truth, the Institute rescued me. Both of us, really."

"How….how do you figure? No one rescued me. I escaped and barely scraped by while trying to track you down."

"You didn't escape. I released you."

"Really?" I said, with a slight sway of dizziness. Too many chems, I suppose. "So you just decided to kill everyone else in the vault for fun?" Instinctively, my fingers traveled to my temples where a sharp pain was beginning to stab at me, asking for another hit.

"Aside from Nate, that wasn't our fault. That was Vault-Tec's faulty equipment. It cost us a lot of time and resources just to keep you alive. We had to send people to Vault 111 regularly to maintain your pod."

"But you could have released me at any time, and all those other people…"

"You said so yourself. It was a struggle to survive. We did those other people a favor by sparing them a life in these wastes."

"But you waited this long, so why release me at all?"

"It certainly wasn't necessary to keep you suspended any longer. I'll admit I had little expectations of you surviving out here, much less infiltrating the Institute and finding me. I find it extraordinary. I guess I just wanted to see what would happen. An experiment of sorts."

"Well, I'm glad I was kept alive so I could be an experiment for you. That seems perfectly fucking reasonable."

His brow furrowed. "If you want to blame someone, blame Vault-Tec. All of you in Vault 111 were originally their social experiment."

The lives of others matter so little to people in power, even my own son was corrupted by it. "Shaun, you need to know, I still love you-"

"Yes, I can see that, and it's remarkable."

"But this is wrong. The way you treated me, the things you do to the Commonwealth. You can't just experiment with people's lives like that. Does the Institute really have no sense of morality?"

"There is no moral dilemma here. Soon, I hope you'll understand everything I've done has been for the future. A future which I hope is not in jeopardy after recent events. Bunker Hill did not go well for us. Do you care to explain what happened back there?"

"Oh that? It was just a slip. I'm a bit out of sorts right now."

"This was such a simple task, I just don't understand. I know you're capable of handling yourself. How can I expect you to represent the Institute if this sort of thing continues?"

"Yeah, sorry about that." Not really.

He looked at me sideways. "This was supposed to solidify your position with the board of directors, but now, it will only raise suspicions. I can keep this incident from them for the time being, if you still intend to help us."

"I just…I don't know about that."

"I know what you're thinking, and you should take into consideration that not choosing a side to remain neutral is still making a choice. It won't absolve you from the sins of any other factions involved. Your lack of action still has an impact on the future, just as decisively fighting would, so it would be wise of you not to flounder. I don't know what the appeal of this outside world is to you, but if you really want to make a difference in shaping its future, you should help us. The Brotherhood of Steel with their mismanaged, primitive technology is only going to make a bigger mess if allowed to continue meddling, and the Railroad? Their intentions are laughable."

"What about the Minutemen?" I asked.

He raised an eyebrow, "What Minutemen?"

Ouch. "Not a threat, apparently."

The sun had climbed its way over the tops of the buildings, and he scanned the horizon one last time. "I've seen enough. Come find me in the conference room, and I can fill you in on the details of what I have planned for this wasteland. You should probably clean yourself up first." He disappeared in a blue flash.

Dogmeat and I descended the building's stairs and stepped back outside.

Now was my chance if I wanted to understand what the point was of all the Institute's fear-mongering and warfare, but I really didn't want to know at that point. I was burned out.

I looked down at Dogmeat, the hopelessly loyal beast never more than a step away from my feet, and he was looking back at me, panting. Rainclouds were making their way over the horizon with a distant rumble and the wind was starting to pick up.

"Go home, boy."

He looked confused.

I cupped my hands against the wind to light a cigarette. "That doesn't work on me. I know you're smarter than that. Just go home. Protect Sanctuary. I am done fighting."

He whined.

"You don't have to worry about me, boy. I'm done with all of this. Go home."

He tucked his tail and began slinking up the road to Sanctuary.

With my own tail tucked, I began slinking down the other road towards Goodneighbor.


	12. Return to Goodneighbor

_"They can't control us if we're not afraid. Now, who's scared of the Institute?"_

_"Not us!"_

_"And which town in the Commonwealth should the Institute not fuck with?"_

_"Goodneighbor!"_

_"And who's in charge of Goodneighbor?"_

_"Hancock! Of the people! For the people!"_

It had started to pour, and I trudged forward through it. The rain beat down and spread the blood on my dress, making it look a mottled brown color. I decided it probably made me camouflage better. This dress, always practical, symbolically was better at adapting to different situations than I was at that phase in my life. I didn't use to be like that. I guess I was finally broken.

_"Nothing to lose but each other."_

Hancock's words rattled through my clouded head as I worked my way automatically towards his town. Now, I literally had nothing to lose.

I was so lost in thought, I never saw that deathclaw coming. I wasn't aware of it until I was hanging upside down in his face. Dangerously close lightning bolts illuminated his massive reptilian features perfectly. I heard his indomitable roar over the cracking thunder as I dangled inches from his lethal maw and downward curved horns. The force and heat of his breath brushed across my face, blowing my wet hair back. This never would have happened if I wasn't traveling alone.

He had me by both my ankles, and I could feel the pain begin to radiate from them as the sides of my boots dug into my heels. I reached for my gun and blasted him in the eyes. He dropped me instantly, reaching for his face where I wounded him.

I took most of the impact from the fall in my bad shoulder, and I was seeing stars from the pain. I dragged myself, slipping through the mud to cover in a nearby metro booth. He was pretty much blinded, but he could still smell me. He lumbered over to the booth. He was too big to get inside but that didn't stop him from desperately swiping into it with his claws. I stayed as low as I could, narrowly avoiding his blows.

All of the ruckus alerted some nearby feral ghouls. They began to swarm towards the deathclaw and soon, the two parties were engaged in each other while the storm crashed around ominously. I watched in terror as the deathclaw sliced and diced at them like a hot knife through butter, but the ghouls had him outnumbered and were steadily wearing him down.

He managed to cut through all the ferals, but they weakened him considerably. Not much of a threat anymore, I unloaded on him until my clip was empty. His body hit the mud with a loud slap. He was cashed in.

Still in the safety of the metro booth, I took a stimpak, but it didn't help with the pain. I rifled around in my bag for some med-x, but all I could find were empty syringes. I had used all of it recreationally and had nothing left. I started swallowing mentats and buffout. Even though I knew they don't do much for pain, at least I could try to distract my mind from it.

I tried to stand on my battered ankles, but I could tell the skin was broken, and the tough leather of my shoes scraped at the wounds. It was pretty bad, but I suppose things could have been worse if I wasn't wearing combat boots when he grabbed me. I took them off and saw a streak of blood down the backs of both calf-high socks that had slouched around my heels inside the boots. I decided I wasn't going anywhere else that day and just lied on the hard concrete floor of the booth until I dozed off.

* * *

I don't know how long I was out, but the sun was directly overhead when I woke to the smell of the bloated, decaying corpses on the other side of the wall. I prepared to start traveling again, but I couldn't put my boots back on. It hurt too much. I wore only my bloody socks and tied my shoes to my bag by the laces. I took a handful of whatever chems I had on hand and proceeded.

I had to learn how to be stealthy all over again. It was something I hadn't done since I started using chems. The injuries on my heels and ankles made it impossible for me to stay crouched, but I stuck to cover as much as possible. The journey to Goodneighbor was slow and tedious under these conditions, but I finally made it, taking much longer than I normally would have.

I didn't know what to expect when I came through the town's gates. People stared at me, but no one spoke to me. I made my way up the spiral stairs of the State House, leaning heavily on the rail in obvious pain, and no one cared. Once at the top, I went to Hancock's office where we had our conversation all those months back that resulted in us traveling together. No one was there, not even Fahrenheit, who was usually posted by the doors.

I plopped myself down on the couch and helped myself to some med-x from the coffee table that still had the knife sticking out of it. The drug sent a sharp shiver down my spine as it took effect instantly. It was such sweet relief.

After enjoying the satisfaction of the med-x for a few moments, I began to wonder where Hancock was. I changed out of my bloodstained dress back into the man's suit that I had held onto all this time. It felt baggier than I remembered. I looked around for a mirror so I could check myself out, but there were absolutely none to be found in Hancock's quarters. Figures.

I gathered up a few more stray med-x syringes that were lying around and put them in my jacket pocket. I stuffed my bag under Hancock's desk, out of sight, and took out my silenced 10mm. On my way out, I pulled the knife from the table and hid it on me.

The patrons of the Third Rail got quiet all at once when I made my entrance. I looked around at all the faces following my movements as I moved through the bar. I came to Whitechapel Charlie and ordered a bourbon.

"I'm afraid I can't help you, mum."

"And why not?"

"You should probably leave, before you get hurt."

"Wha-?"

"Word around town is that you're Institute scum. I know the boss has a soft spot for you, so I would never harm you, but I can't speak for the rest of the town's miscreants."

"Where's Hancock? I want to talk to him."

"He's not here, mum. Went to the Glowing Sea. Took Fahrenheit with him. Hasn't come back yet."

I hadn't considered he might not be here, much less that I would be unwelcome in Goodneighbor. I looked around me again, this time noticing how antsy the barflies and drifters were with hands hovering near weapons.

"Shit…"

I felt a hand on my shoulder and spun around to see Magnolia standing behind me. "Come on, girl. It's not safe here."

She started to lead me to a back exit when two men stood up from a table, the sounds of their chair legs scraping across the floor startling me. "I don't think you should do that, Ms. Magnolia."

"And what are you going to do, Punt? String her up in the square? I don't think Hancock would like you doing that. He has a history with this girl, and what happens to her is his business."

The other guy slowly eased back into his seat, but Punt wasn't backing down. "Just the same, miss, she's an enemy of this town and she can't just go free."

"I'm taking care of it. Just have a seat."

"Not a chance. She should be locked up until the mayor returns." He threw his hands outward and looked around at the others in the bar. "Am I right?"

A mumble of agreeance spread across the people. The man grabbed me roughly by my shoulder, the bad one, and I winced in pain.

"Look," Magnolia tried to assert diplomatically, "she is clearly injured. It would probably be best if we just take her to Dr. Amari to be treated and she can keep an eye on her. I trust she won't run." She looked down at me with a knowing face. "Will ya, hon?"

"N-no. Of course not. I just want to see Hancock. I don't work for the Institute."

"Yeah, well obviously you would say that." Punt yanked me forward. "I'd feel better if we just keep an eye on her here." He pulled my wrists together behind my back and the jerking motion sent a shooting pain through my shoulder to where I couldn't resist his grip. I didn't take enough med-x for this. The other guy stepped forward with a roll of duct tape and bound my hands like that while Punt removed my 10 from its holster. Then they pushed me onto a couch and did the same to my sore ankles. I cried out in pain.

"Careful!" Magnolia yelled reaching out towards me. "Don't hurt her!"

"Eh, she'll be fine right there," he said as he walked away from the couch.

* * *

I spent the rest of the afternoon on that couch. Some people would lightly taunt me, while others were visibly uncomfortable by the situation. I was starting to shake and sweat as the chems wore off.

Late in the evening, MacCready came to the Third Rail. Instantly recognizing me, he got filled in on what was going on and made his way over to where I was on the couch, sitting down next me.

"So, you're an agent of the Institute, huh?" He lit a cigarette and the smell of the smoke wafting so close to me made me long for a nicotine fix.

"Do you mind letting me hit that?" I asked

He half-smiled. "Sure." He held it up to my lips for me as I took a long, deep drag, and my shakes lessened slightly.

"You're a mess," he remarked.

"You're not the first person to tell me that… This is all just a big misunderstanding, you know. I don't actually work for the Institute"

"Yeah, I believe you. I know we didn't spend much time together, but you don't strike me as the Institute type. You seem even less so now than when I first met you. What are you on?"

"Oh, a little of everything. I'm coming down now, and it's extremely unpleasant."

"I can only imagine." He held the cigarette up for me again. "If the others will let me, I could get you a drink."

"That would be great."

He brought me the bourbon I tried to order when I first got there and helped me get it down. "Better?"

"A little bit. Isn't there anyone in this town that can vouch for me besides Hancock?"

"I don't think so."

"How long has he been gone?"

"Ah, geez, I dunno. At least a couple months."

I squirmed a little as the ramifications of that information registered. "I fucked up. Real bad. I never should have told him to go."

"No, you shouldn't have. You had something every girl in this town would give their right hand for. I don't think you realize how impossible it is to romance the mayor like that. When he came back, I spent many nights in here with him, listening to him pour his heart out about missing you." He pushed a finger in my shoulder, and I winced. "He was really sprung."

"I'd do anything to take it back. God, I hope he's ok."

"Yeah, I wouldn't call on God for that one, if I were you. God doesn't owe Hancock any favors." He stood up.

"Are you leaving?"

"For now, but I'll be around."

* * *

The upside to having a robot bartender is that the bar can stay open 24/7. This, however, was bad news for me. The Third Rail never closed, and someone was always in there. There was no golden opportunity for me to try to escape or for someone to rescue me.

It was getting late, maybe three or four if I had to guess. Magnolia hadn't played a set all night. She refused as protest to my captivity, but it wasn't effecting the bar patrons as she had hoped. Most of them had gone home by now. MacCready was still there, drinking quietly alone at the bar. He, Magnolia, and the two guys from before were the only ones still hanging around, aside from the bartender.

I was getting bored. "You're not really going to keep me like this until Hancock gets back are you?"

"Yep." Punt took a swig of his beer.

"What if he doesn't come back?"

"For your sake, you better hope he does."

I huffed. "I'm starting to get a bit of a rapey vibe, here."

Punt grunted in amusement. "This is Goodneighbor. There's easier ways to get laid without getting your dick bit off."

I started wiggling. "Come on, guys. This is inhumane."

"Nah, yer fine," said the duct tape guy, Arlo, with a lazy drunken slur.

"But I have to use the bathroom." I whined.

They whispered something among themselves before Arlo came over and held a knife in front of me. "Ah'm gonna walk ya to the bathroom. I'm not gonna release yah hands until we get ther, and ya bettah not try anything funny." I nodded, and he lunged at my legs with the knife cutting the duct tape from my feet.

Once we reached the top of the stairs, he freed my hands and gave the doorman a nod. I looked back at them while rotating my shoulders, trying to work out the kinks.

He made a forward motion with his hand. "Go."

I limped to the bathroom stall and dug around in my pocket for the med-x I had nabbed. I had four of them, and I took all four. The rush was incredible and my pain was completely gone. I started singing to myself, and the bathroom acoustics were amazing. "Play the guitar, play it again, my Johnny. Maybe you're cold but you're so warm inside…"

"Knock it ahff in there, Pavarotti!" I heard my captor yell from the hallway. "Jus hurry up, will ya?"

I sang louder. "Iiii was always a fooool for my Johnnyyyyy….For the ooone they caaaall…Johnny Guitaaaaaar."

"You've been good up until now. I'd hate to have to gag ya."

I attempted to pee while I was there, but it felt like pushing out dust. I was pretty dehydrated and hadn't been eating much lately. I really just staged this whole thing because I wanted the chems. Now that I had them, I could finally think straight. I slipped a finger into my boot and pulled out the knife I had hidden there. I re-hid it behind me in the waist of my pants. I was ready.

When I came out, he bound my hands again and led me down the stairs. I nodded to MacCready and Magnolia at the bar as I sat back down on the couch. I nimbly pulled the knife out from my waistband and freed my hands. Keeping them behind my back, I lifted my feet out in front of me. When Arlo bent over to tape them, I kicked him in the throat as hard as I could, jumping into an attack position with the knife. The tape fell from his hands and rolled across the floor to the bar where Magnolia grabbed it.

Punt leapt up from his chair, but MacCready punched him in the face, knocking him backwards into the table. While they were fist-fighting, Magnolia and I taped up Arlo who was gasping for breath on the floor. Charlie saw what was happening, but apparently, he didn't care.

I motioned for Magnolia to hold the roll while I stretched out a length of tape. Holding the end of it, I rushed toward Punt who was still struggling with MacCready. Magnolia followed and we caught him in the face with the duct tape. He pulled at it with both hands, and I punched him in the crotch. He immediately fell to his knees in pain. Magnolia and I proceeded to duct tape him while MacCready held him down. I got my 10 off of him and put it back in my holster.

"How do you like it?" I said as I kicked Punt in the side kind of weakly. He still had duct tape on his mouth and only made muffled sounds. "Eh, vete a la verga," I said dismissively.

"Ok, now what?" MacCready asked.

I was scraping my fingernail across the tape scum on my pip-boy screen. "Shit, I dunno. I just didn't want to be tied up anymore. I still want to talk to Hancock, so I guess I'll just hang out here with these two pendejos."

"That's probably not a good idea," Magnolia chimed in.

"Why not? It's a show of good faith. When other people start filtering back in here, they'll see that I didn't run, and my two prisoners here will be a message to not fuck with me. Surely the fact that Hancock loves me-" _Loved me_ , "-Should hold some kind of weight around here."

"Yeah, but you broke his heart." MacCready added.

Magnolia shook her head at me.

Whitechapel Charlie, idly polishing a glass, met my gaze. "If you get Ham on your side, that will probably be alright."

"Who's Ham?" I asked.

"The bouncer, mum."

"Oh, right."

So Magnolia spoke with Ham and made sure he was copacetic before shoving off to her bed for the night. MacCready stuck around for a while and we had a few drinks. When the first couple drifters of the day came in, they stopped at the foot of the stairs and gawked at Punt and Arlo bound on the floor. MacCready and I just raised our glasses at them, smiling.

With that, they stepped over my two captives and got themselves some drinks. Later, when Magnolia came back, she began performing at her regular intervals, and no one batted an eye.

I always knew deep down that Goodneighbor was my kind of town.


	13. The End of the World

"Why don't you walk your ass back to Goodneighbor and stay there!"

My heart stopped and my body got stiff. I didn't know we were having that kind of fight. Every iota of hostility left my voice. "You don't mean that."

She instantly dropped all her rage, too. I don't think she knew that's where this fight was going either. She practically whispered. "…Maybe you should."

I searched her in the deafening silence for an indication that this was reversible, only to find that it was for real. Her right hand was coddling her wedding ring. _So that's what this is about_ …

I could feel my heart breaking. "Is that really what you want?"

She wouldn't look me in the eyes. "I don't know what I want. That's why maybe you should."

I stared at her ring finger, feeling another fracture in my chest with every twist she made. "I see."

I went for her bag and found a vial, holding it up to the light to confirm it was Virgil's serum. I gave a quick glance at all the chems on the floor. They weren't worth the excruciating time it would take to gather them up, when at any moment, I could crack. I shoved the anti-mutagen into my bag and slung the strap over my shoulder, doing my best to get out of there before the stinging in my eyes turned into tears. "Goodbye, Felina."

I left without looking back. I kept my head low when I got outside the house, wanting to avoid anyone who might try to engage me.

As I was heading down the road, I heard Felina call to me from the window. "John, wait!"

I pretended I didn't hear her. I hated to admit it, but Preston had been right all along. She wasn't over her husband, and now karma was lashing out at me for disregarding his warnings. As always, I was getting shit on, because I fucking deserve it. All that was left to do was to put as much distance as I could between myself and that place. It's the only way I know.

I automatically took the road to Goodneighbor. Once Sanctuary was no longer visible behind me, I collapsed on the curb, digging in my pocket for chems. I had left most of them back in Felina's room, but I had a couple needles of med-x handy. I used them both, tilting my head back in anticipation of the flood of relief they should give me. I felt the sting of it pushing its way into my bloodstream, but the euphoria never came.

I knew I should get moving again, but I didn't. I just sat there on the side of the road with my head in my hands and cried.

* * *

I was greeted enthusiastically by the citizens of Goodneighbor. I was wrong before. This was where I belonged. Giving everyone who spoke to me a quick acknowledgment, I moved without stopping straight for the State House. I needed a moment. And more drugs.

I found Fahrenheit at the top of the stairs. Before she could say a word to me, I asked her to clear everyone from the floor, and I closed myself in my office.

She efficiently carried out my request and returned, shutting the double doors behind her. "What happened?"

She and I had been friends for a long time. I couldn't hide it from her that something was wrong if I wanted to. "Not right now," I replied as I sorted through the mess on my desk in search of some mentats.

Fahrenheit was no fool. She had observed the sexual tension between Felina and me last time I was in town, and now I had returned alone and upset. "That girl… Do you want me to take care of her for you?"

I knew she meant it as a joke to lighten the mood, but I also knew she wouldn't hesitate if I told her yes. "No, eveything's fine, Fahrenheit. I just need a fix." I found a brand new tin of mentats under a pile of empty cigarette boxes and broke the seal on it, swallowing a few. I pocketed the tin and leaned forward with both hands on my desk, staring straight ahead in thought.

The radio on the shelf was on low and that godawful Skeeter Davis song came on.

_Why does the sun go on shining_

_Why does the sea rush to shore_

_Don't they know it's the end of the world_

_'Cause you don't love me any more_

It's not so much that the song itself is so terrible. I just couldn't stomach it right then. I felt my eyeball start to twitch as I tightened my grip on the edge of the desk.

Fahrenheit rushed to the radio and flipped the switch to off. "C'mon. Let's go get fucked up."

I lit a stale cigarette from one of the open packs on my desk. "Yeah, alright."

I flung the doors to the Third Rail open with both hands, raising them outward. "Daddy's home!" I called out to the patrons downstairs. I put on a confident face and strolled down the stairs as though everything was fine. I was still the mayor - I had to keep up appearances.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and scanned the room of all the familiar faces. They were all drifters, gamblers, and troublemakers, but goddammit, it was a long shot better than all those uptight assholes in Sanctuary.

I called out to Mags, "Man, how I missed that golden voice of yours! How 'bout some music?"

"Anything for you, lover," she replied teasingly as she took the stage.

I approached Whitechapel Charlie. "Chuck! I'll take whatever you got that doesn't taste like molerat piss tonight."

"I'll see what I can do, Mayor 'ancock."

Things were already starting to seem normal again. I took a seat at the bar while I waited on my drink, and MacCready was in the adjacent stool. "How's it going, Mac?"

"Hey, Mayor Hancock! You here alone, this time?"

"Yeah, I left that dizzy broad back in Sanctuary." I said as casually as I could muster.

"Eh, it's about time! I was starting to get concerned that she might domesticate you."

Charlie slid me my drink. I knocked it back in one gulp and slid the empty glass back to him. "Impossible."

Fahrenheit sat down on the other side of me with a beer. "You have to admit, though. You probably just broke your record for longest relationship with that one."

MacCready chuckled. "Yeah, what was it before? A two-night stand?"

"Consecutively? Three," I said sarcastically, but there was still some truth to it. Chuck gave me another drink and I knocked that one back, too, flipping the glass upside down on the counter. "In all fairness, I took it slow with Felina. We hadn't been going at each other for all that long either."

Mac's eyes got wide. "I don't care how long you were tagging her. I'm way more impressed that you 'took it slow' with someone."

"Yeah, thanks," I replied without emotion.

"I don't get it," Fahrenheit said in a skeptical tone. "What was so different about her? "

I could feel the mentats starting to intermingle with the booze in a warm haze. "Everything."

I saw Fahrenheit raise an eyebrow and exchange a questioning glance with MacCready.

He subtly shrugged back at her before directing his attention at me. "So… are you ok?"

"…No." Charlie set the bottle in front of me, and I took a swig straight from it. "But I will be. Don't worry 'bout it."

I was halfway through bottle number two when I realized I had overdone it. I was getting to the weepy/huggy part of being drunk, and my mind was not in a good enough place for that. "I fucked up. I ain't entirely sure which part was the biiig fuck up, but it was definitely something I did."

"Hey, we aaaall make mizzmakes." Fahrenheit slurred, moments before passing out with her head down on the bar.

"Yeah, and falling for someone is the good kind of mistake," MacCready added.

"I knew exactly when it was going to be an issue, and I don't know why I didn't get out right then. I'm never that lucky. I knew it! I fucking knew it! She was so vulnerable. She was so… but she tried to play it off. She needed me. Why me, though? It could have just as easily been you," I said, motioning toward Mac with the bottle. "She met _you_ first. If I didn't go with her, you might still be with her _right now_." I slammed my hand down on the bar with the last two words. Fahrenheit made a grumbling sound and flipped her head the other way, going back to sleep.

"Nah, I doubt that."

"No, you don't understand. You don't get it. She would have got her claws in you like she did _me_. Then _you_ would be the brokenhearted asshole sitting at this bar right now instead of me… not that I would wish that on you, Mac, but ya know what I'm sayin'." I shook my head. "Nope. This is never happening again."

"Swearing off women?" He teased.

"She was the one, Mac."

"The one? That's a pretty hefty claim…"

"But she was! No one has ever made me feel what she made me feel. No one. She was… in-tox-i-catingly beautiful," I said, careful not to stumble over the syllables. "She was a friend. She was... She was vicious in battle. She was even more vicious in bed. She was better than the chems… Goddammit. I _love_ her." I could feel the stinging behind my eyes again.

"I'm sorry, man. It happens to the best of us. That's all I can say. But you'll move on. You may even continue to love her and miss her for a long time, but it will get easier. You'll slowly come to realize it's not the end of the world."

"I dunno, man. I dunno. It might be. The world _has_ ended before."

"Yeah, but life went on. Look at us now. We're still here, sitting in a bar, getting drunk about bs first-world problems. Tomorrow, when you wake up all hungover, you're going to feel all kinds of crappy, especially when you remember all the stuff you said tonight. Then you're going to feel like an idiot for getting all gushy and letting her have that kind of effect on you. Then you'll probably choke down some mentats like you do, have a quick jerk, and get on with your life."

"I know you're right, but goddammit, this sucks," I said as I buried my face in my arms on the bar.

MacCready put his arm over my shoulder. "Or if you just want to get drunk in the bar every night until you've lost the ability to feel anything at all, I'll be here."

With my face still buried, my muffled reply was, "You're a true friend, Mac."

He lifted his arm up and slapped me on the back. "I try."

* * *

MacCready patiently listened to my nightly drunk ramblings for longer than I care to admit. I decided the booze wasn't helping so I quit going to the bar every night. Sitting around getting high with Fahrenheit in the State House wasn't much better. I needed to distract myself. Remembering I had the anti-mutagen, I asked Fahrenheit to come with me on the trip to bring it to Virgil. We got her a radiation suit, packed some bags, and headed out.

Virgil was more than happy to see that vial, but he was being oddly aloof once it was in his hands. He very bluntly asked us to leave so he could use it, and we did, no questions asked.

Once we were safely out of the Glowing Sea and back in the Commonwealth, I sprung my next plan on Fahrenheit, but she was very opposed to it.

"Absolutely not! You do _not_ need to go back to Sanctuary."

"It has to be done. Felina promised that holotape to the Railroad. If she's working for the Institute now, ain't no way she's going to bring it to them."

"So what? She made that promise, not you. Your word isn't at stake here. You're just looking for an excuse to see her."

"No, I swear that ain't it at all. Someone has to get that holotape to the Railroad. It's our only hope of someone taking down the Institute, because obviously Felina's not going to do it, and neither are the Minutemen since she's their general."

"What exactly is on that holotape?"

"I don't know specifically, but it's supposed to be a copy of their entire database from when she teleported inside."

I could tell she was incredibly pissed, but she reluctantly agreed to go along.

I felt my pulse begin to race as we walked across the bridge to Sanctuary. I had no idea what I was going to say if Felina tried to talk to me. For the sake of our intentions, it was best if she didn't even know I was there, but deep down, I was hoping she would see me.

Dick, Brandon, or whatever his name was that stood guard eyeballed me as we came through the gate, but he didn't say anything to us. Inside, the street was hauntingly empty. I made a beeline for the workshop where Sturges usually was, but no one was there.

Fahrenheit gave me an incredulous look. "I thought you said this was a bustling community."

"It was when I left it." I shaded the sun from my eyes with my hand and scanned the horizon. There was a group of people standing out in the fields. "Over there. Let's go."

As I got closer to them, I could see that we had showed up at a bad time. They were burying someone. I turned to Fahrenheit and whispered, "Let's just go wait back at the workshop." She nodded, and we started to head back up the hill.

After only a couple steps, I heard Preston yell, "You!"

We looked over our shoulders and saw him furiously stomping up the hill toward us. The people below all turned to watch.

"I got no beef with you, Preston. Felina and I are no longer –"

When he got close enough to me, he punched me right in the face. I wasn't prepared for it, and it knocked me back a couple feet. I stumbled to catch my balance. "What the fuck?!" I dodged his second swing, taking a defensive stance.

"You junkie piece of shit!"

He swung his fist at me again, but I blocked it, and immediately returned the favor. I leapt backwards up to level ground, and Fahrenheit started to step up, but I shook my head. "I got this."

A couple more well placed punches knocked Preston over, causing him to roll downhill several feet. I stepped backwards, making sure I had the high ground. He jumped up and took a wide path up to the horizontal dirt, trying to circle me onto the downslope.

"What's your problem?" I shouted.

"I warned you, Hancock! Multiple times!" He kept side-stepping with his fists raised, and I followed suit. "You came in here and wrecked our community! You completely broke Felina. She's strung out on chems now…"

"You may not have known this, but she had a predisposition –" I crouched to avoid another fist flying at me. "- To chems. She was selling them before she ever met me."

"You killed Mama Murphy!"

My eyes got wide. " Is that who…?" The rage came back in an instant. "No I fucking didn't! I just got here!" I landed another blow, but it didn't faze him.

"And now the General has abandoned us, and it's all your fault!" He caught me in the ear with a wicked right hook. "I should fucking put you down!"

I could feel blood trickling down my neck. I instinctively grabbed at the injury, exposing myself to another nasty shot in the gut. When I doubled over, I inadvertently avoided a swing at my head. The emanating pain lit a fire in me, and I started to growl.

"You –" I landed a heavy jab into his side, leaning into him with punch after punch.

"- Need to get over your little _crush_!" Slam.

"And your weird fucking Minutemen _kink_!" Slam.

"Always calling her ' _General_ '!" Slam. I had him on the ground now. "You just couldn't accept that she picked me over you!"

He put a hand out, blood dripping down his face. "Okay, stop! Stop... "

"That's what I fucking thought!" I said as I stood up straight. I tilted my head to my shoulders, popping my neck.

He sat up, holding the side I had tenderized. "You're right."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, I was jealous, but I know she loved you. And more importantly, I know you love her." He winced a little and held his side tighter. "It's not really worth fighting about. You're not even together anymore... I'm just working through my grief over Mama Murphy and took it out on you."

 _Well, that was unexpected_. I reached my hand out to help him up. "You wanna go get a beer or something?"

He pulled himself up with my help. "…Yeah."

* * *

We sat down at the tavern's bar. "What's your poison?" I asked Preston.

"Beer is fine."

I waved Rocko over. "Three beers."

Rocko set all three bottles down on the bar together, and we each reached for one. I turned to Preston. "So what happened to Mama Murphy?"

"I guess her heart finally gave out. No one was even giving her any chems. Not that I know of."

"That sucks, man. She was a strange one, but I really liked her."

Preston didn't reply. He just threw back half of his beer. "So what brings you back to Sanctuary? If you came to see Felina, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. Shortly after you left, she pretty much vanished."

"Actually, I'm not here for her at all. I came to get a copy of that Institute intel to bring to the Railroad."

"Why the Railroad?"

"They only agreed to help her decode the courser chip in exchange for a copy of the holotape."

He idly twisted his beer bottle on the bar. "What makes you think she didn't already bring it to them?"

I calmly lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke in a thin stream to one side. "Did she ever mention why I left?"

"It never came up."

"After she got back from the Institute, she started having second thoughts about where her loyalties lie. All of them."

Dread began to slowly spread across his face. "I hope you're kidding."

"I wish I was. We had a big fight about it, and she told me to leave, and I'm not one to stay when I'm not wanted."

"So do you think that's why she deserted Sanctuary?"

"It's the only conclusion that makes any sense. I don't think she's going to be your 'general' anymore."

His fidgety mannerisms reflected his worry as he flagged Rocko down for another beer. "Well, that explains her unusual behavior. I just thought it was from using chems… "

"That was a symptom, not a cause. She came home from the Institute all upset and got into my stash without any warning. After our fight, I left in a hurry with most of my chems still here, so I wouldn't be surprised if she was still using."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "That was kinda irresponsible of you."

I mashed the butt of my cigarette into an ashtray. "You don't understand. While we were arguing, she started throwing the shit all over the place."

"She did?"

"Yeah. Broke the dresser, too."

The corners of his mouth drew downward. "I've never seen her act like that."

"Me neither. You were right, though. She's not over Nate."

He looked down into his bottle, avoiding eye contact with me. "I'm not the 'I told you so' kind of person. Not really necessary. You've probably suffered enough, anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"I know you love her, so you're probably hurting pretty bad. I initially thought she was just another fling for you, the way you went out of your way to make a big production out of being flirtatious with her. But I heard you talking to the dog the day she went to the Institute. And I saw how hurt you were the day you two split. You can't fake that stuff. You wouldn't anyway. It's too contradictory to the way you want people to see you."

Fahrenheit smirked. "You got that right."

I looked back at Preston. "So are we cool now?"

"Yeah. We're cool." He extended his hand to me and I shook it. "I just wish things had gone differently. For either of us."

"You ain't kidding, brother. Just about any other scenario could have played out better." I remarked.

"Felina really screwed us all on this one," he said with a sigh. "Help yourself to whatever you need to fight the Institute. Take that holotape to the Railroad, or hell, take them the blueprints if you want. Let them know they have the Minutemen's support."

"Will do."


	14. Into Each Life, Some Rain Must Fall

Fahrenheit and I set off to the Old North Church the next day. When we got to the end of the tunnel underneath the church, I stopped and looked at Fahrenheit. "You gotta look away while I put in the password."

She looked irked. "What, really?"

I input the word "railroad". "Heh, no."

"Did you just - ?" As the door began to open, she shook her head. "Ah, forget it."

The floodlights flipped on as we stepped into the entrance. Deacon was standing there, smoking a cigarette. "Hey, man! Good to see you again." All the cordiality drained from his face as he motioned toward Fahrenheit. "Wait. That's not Felina…"

"Don't worry. She's trustworthy."

He narrowed his eyes at her as her examined her. "She's that woman who stands guard at the State House, right?"

She shook his hand firmly. "Fahrenheit."

"Yeah, alright. She can come in. Let me just have a word with Dez first so she doesn't flip out. Wait here."

Once inside, I held the holotape out to Dez. "I believe you were owed this."

Her eyes lit up. "Is that… ?"

"The Institute intel."

Desdemona snatched the tape from my hand and we followed as she excitedly rushed to Tinker Tom with it, who was even more excited than she was. He scurried off clutching the holotape, still talking out loud to himself about it. Dez was left standing there with us. She crossed her arms as she looked up and down at Fahrenheit, then over to me. "Where's Felina?" She asked like an angry mother.

"She and I had a… falling out."

I heard an unfamiliar voice behind me. "You know Felina?"

I turned around and was met with an elegant face framed in long, graceful waves of chestnut hair towering over me from a set of Brotherhood of Steel power armor. She was anxiously awaiting my answer with big, wavering blue eyes. I was so stunned, I almost forgot to speak. "Uh, yeah."

"I've been looking for her. We're from the same time. Before the war."

Fahrenheit nudged me with her elbow. "You're into that shit, aren't you?" she whispered.

I only glared at her for a split second before diverting my eyes back to the new girl. "How can that be?"

"I was in Vault 111, too."

"Small world." I offered her my hand. "I'm Hancock, the Mayor of Goodneighbor. And you?"

"Lynn. Pleased to meet you." When she accepted, I kissed her armored hand instead of shaking it. She withdrew from me. "So how do you know Felina?"

"We traveled together for a while," I said nonchalantly. "What do you do around here?"

"Whatever they need me to do. Fighting the good fight."

I smiled. "That is exactly what I like to hear when I meet a pretty new face." My eyes trailed down her armor to the Brotherhood insignia. "But you'd be a lot more attractive without the tin can. You're not really a member of the BoS, are you?"

She looked a little annoyed. "Actually, yes."

That was not the answer I expected. "And the Railroad is ok with that?"

"Look, I know the BoS has some pretty short-sighted views, but a lot of the people there aren't so bad. I'm making an effort to change some of their outdated doctrines, such as their beliefs about ghouls."

"I can appreciate that, but I've gotta say, you've got your work cut out for you with that one."

She clearly wasn't interested in small talk. "Do you know how I can get in touch with Felina?"

My gaze wandered. "Not really."

She subtly started to step away, indicating she was finished with our conversation. "Well, I've gotta go. I have to go set up this MILA for Tom… "

"If you'd like, I could tag along. I'd love to help the Railroad in any way I can."

"No, thanks. But if you're looking for work, P. A. M. or Dr. Carrington might have something for you." She tucked her hair up into a sloppy bun and put on her helmet.

"Yeah, ok. Thanks."

After she left, Fahrenheit gave me a disconcerted look as she took out a cigarette. "I don't know what to make of what I just witnessed," she remarked as she brought a flame up to her face.

"What?"

"I thought for a second there you were going to put the moves on that girl, but then you let me down with that cheesy hand kissing crap," she said, waving sarcastically. "You weren't even trying."

"I wanted to, believe me."

She sharply exhaled her drag, looking at me with eagerness. "So does that mean you're ready to get back in the saddle?"

"Not really. It was more like I wanted to fuck her silly to get back at Felina, but I couldn't have if I tried."

"And why not?"

"Because... I couldn't _actually_ do anything vindictive to Felina. Despite everything, I still love her."

Fahrenheit let out an exasperated sigh. "You're fucking hopeless."

The sound of a throat being cleared for attention came from behind us. We both turned around to see Desdemona standing there.

"I'm still here, by the way," she remarked impatiently.

Fahrenheit and I looked at each other and then back at Dez. She must have heard that whole exchange.

"But tell you what. My favorite part of that conversation was when you said, quote, 'I'd love to help the Railroad in any way I can.' If you're willing to follow up on that, I can easily forget everything else you said."

I shrugged. "Eh, I ain't really doing anything important at the moment."

"That chip you and Felina brought us – You killed that courser yourselves, right?"

"Yeah."

She tilted her head back and looked down her nose at us. "Think you could do it again?"

"I don't see why not."

* * *

Fahrenheit and I had become honorary "heavies" for the Railroad. For a couple months, we leisurely traveled around the Commonwealth tracking down and killing Institute coursers on their behalf. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement for everyone. Every courser we took down helped to keep the Railroad and the synths they were trying to free a little safer. Fahrenheit enjoyed the action. For me, I got the personal satisfaction of sticking it to the Institute.

The very last one we "deactivated" was in the Poseidon Energy HQ. The entrance was protected by a particularly difficult lock, and Fahrenheit took care of it. Once we were in, we took a stealthy approach. We could hear the comments of a protectron on patrol further inside.

The voice was metallic and had an unnaturally distorted pitch. "Please, step into the open and identify yourself. Law abiding citizens have nothing to fear."

Fahrenheit rounded a corner ahead of me in a sprint. Glowing orange light radiated from around the wall she had disappeared behind as I heard the _rat-tat-tat_ of her unloading her minigun on the bucket of bolts.

The protectron's vocal system glitched as she filled him with lead. "Put down your weapon and sub-sub-submit to authority."

She laughed maniacally. "Never!"

The robot was just a pile of scrap by the time I caught up with her. I put my hand on her shoulder. "Save some ammo for the courser fight, sister."

"No worries," she said in a lilting tone.

We continued down the hallway cautiously. There was the occasional frag mine scattered here and there, and I observed in wistful thought as Fahrenheit swiftly disarmed them with the same finesse Felina used to. We got to the end of the hall, and there was a chain of can chimes hanging in the doorway.

She pointed at it with her thumb. "The final obstacle. You may have made it past the mines, but let's see you get past a string of tin cans!"

We both had a quiet laugh about it as we took the chimes down. We stepped through the opening, and we were greeted by a ceiling-mounted laser turret. The pellets from my shotgun detached the head of it and it fell to the floor, exploding into shrapnel.

"Hello?" It was a higher pitched robot voice coming from above. "Is someone present?" Fahrenheit and I ducked down into the shadows. A few moments later, it spoke again. "Hmm. Over active sensors. Nothing more."

We stayed crouched as we climbed some shaky-looking grated catwalks toward the synth. Once the gen 1 synth was within sight, I started to raise my shotgun. Fahrenheit was several feet behind me, still creeping forward, when the section of grating she was on started to give way with a loud creaking sound.

The synth swung around to face us, opening fire. "Movement detected. Combat initiated." Two more came around a corner and joined the fight. Fahrenheit and I returned fire, decimating them within moments. I lit a cigarette, and we continued on.

A little further up, we heard a human voice. "What the hell was that?" It said.

"Raiders!" Fahrenheit hissed in a whisper. There were two of them. We crouched down and started shooting while they still had their backs to us.

I pegged the closest one in the leg with my shotgun, and he fell over, grabbing at his knee. The other one rushed us. "Oh, this is gonna be fun," he exclaimed as he closed in on us.

While Fahrenheit continued to pump the wounded one full of holes, I kicked the pipe rifle out of the other one's hand and dove on top of him, pulling out my knife and aiming for his neck. He squirmed and tried to overpower me, grabbing onto my wrists and attempting to push me off. All the while, I still had the lit cigarette in my mouth.

"Still having fun?" I asked him just beforeI let it drop onto the raider's face, the cherry landing right in his eye. As he screamed and instinctively grabbed for the burning flesh, I was able to get my hand free from his grip. I stabbed him in the center of his chest and pulled the knife down his torso, sliding backwards off of him. He gurgled a final groan, drowning in his own blood.

I picked my still lit cigarette up from the edge of the grating and took a drag, looking over at Fahrenheit. Finished with her raider, she nodded at me and we continued once more up the grating.

We made it up another story to the top floor and approached a centralized room. Several synths could be seen through the interior windows, just standing around, unaware of our presence. That had to be where the courser was.

Cutting a gen 1 synth's throat doesn't do much good, because they will continue to shoot at you regardless, but a courser, being more humanlike, can be taken down in this way. Since I was the one with the knife skills, Fahrenheit and I had an arrangement where I take down the courser from behind while she runs interference with the gen 1's.

I communicated to her through hand gestures which route I planned to take to get behind the courser. She nodded her understanding. She had learned to read my signals with ease over the past couple months and even appreciated their effectiveness. She didn't have to know that it was the system of signals Felina and I had developed to communicate in stealth-based situations like this, since stealth was a large part of Felina's combat strategies.

I took a hit of jet to sharpen my movements and went in for the kill. Everything went according to plan. Fahrenheit charged into the front of the room, minigun ablaze, sweeping it back and forth across the gen 1's. I grabbed the courser from behind and took him out before he could react, his limp body sliding down out of my arms to the floor. By the time that had taken place, Fahrenheit had already destroyed all the synths. It was all very efficient - more borrowed strategies from the "Felina and Hancock Death-Dealing Playbook".

One of the synth's face plates bounced across the floor, stopping short in front of Fahrenheit. She picked it up and held it up to her face like a mask. "Look! I'm a synth! Synths are people, too," she said mockingly in a flat robotic voice. "I have rights. Ha ha ha!"

I laughed. "Quit it, you look like Nick!"

She changed her voice to imitate Nick. "You'd be shocked how many people I've managed to convince I'm just a really sick ghoul."

"Too far," I said light-heartedly.

She tossed the piece to the floor behind her. "At least I got you to smile."

"You always make me smile, Felina."

She stopped dead in her tracks. "What did you just say?"

Realizing my error, I tried not to draw attention to it, directing my focus on looting. "I said, 'You always make me smile'."

"Yeah, and then you called me 'Felina'." I tried to deny it, but she wouldn't let up. "Yes, you fucking did!"

I picked up a full pack of cigarettes from a nearby table and tapped them in my palm. "Don't you think you're overreacting a little?" I said, as I tore the plastic film from the top.

"No. I'm both offended and concerned for your safety because your head's not in the right place."

I slid the first cigarette out of the pack and lit it. "Would it help if I said I'm sorry?"

"No, it would help if you joined the rest of us in reality."

Finding some jet in a drawer, I picked it up and shook it a little to see if it was empty. "That's… I've never done that, Fahrenheit," I said, still holding the inhaler.

She shot a glance at the drug in my hand. "Yeah, I guess not." She grimaced. "Just, don't let it happen again. Get your head on straight."

I removed the cigarette from my lips briefly to take a hit of the jet and then put it back in place. "I'm trying."

* * *

Once Fahrenheit and I were back on the road, we ran into Cricket.

"Man, am I glad to see you!" I called to her when she was within earshot. "I'm low on ammo _and_ chems."

She smiled a sickly smile from underneath her hood. "I might be able to help you with that."

We posted up on the curb to do business. I haggled on the price with her a little bit, but it didn't help much. She had a satisfied toothy grin as she pocketed my caps. "You're a long way from home, Hancock. Are you sure I can't interested you in a few more mentats to get you there?"

"Sister, I'd love to, but I can't afford it. I'm not heading that way anyhow. I'm in the middle of something."

"Really?" She looked at me with a sinisterly-cocked eyebrow. "When exactly _was_ the last time you've been by Goodneighbor?"

She had my curiosity. "Shit, a while. Why do you ask?"

"So, you probably don't know about the tart posted up in the State House using your chems?"

"What… what are you talking about?"

"R. J.'s girl. She's been there a couple months thinning out your supply. The whole town was talking about it last time I came through."

"R. J.? As in MacCready?"

"Yeah, MacCready. She hangs out with him in the Third Rail when she's not in your office."

I felt a twinge of anger vibrating in my head. "Who is his girl?"

"That tan broad that always wears the suit. I think her name is like Felicia or something?"

Something snapped inside of me and I was seeing red. "Do you mean 'Felina'?" I asked through clenched teeth.

"Yeah! That's it!" She tapped her head and pointed at me. "Felina!"

Seething with rage, I took off running down the road.

Cricket, oblivious to what she had just triggered, called after me. "Yeah, alright! Catch you later, Hancock!"


	15. Sex and Violence

_Felina was sprawled out naked on my mattress, surrounded by mountains of chems. Pushing a needle of med-x into the delicate skin inside her arm, she groaned, and her hand slid down south. She glided a finger over her center, pressing down gently. "I'm so wet."_

_"What do you want?" MacCready unzipped his pants, wrapping his hand around his massive erection._

_"You." She stroked her swollen lips, drawing the wetness up and around her clit._

_He removed his shirt, revealing the toned, smooth skin on his muscular chest. "How?"_

_"It doesn't matter." She slowly spread her thighs apart wider. "I just want you inside me."_

_He dove on top of her and began pumping away at her._

_"Oh, just like that!" She called out in ecstasy. "Oh, yes!... You're even bigger than_ Hancock _!"_

"Hancock! HANCOCK WAIT!"

I was tearing down the road in a full sprint, and Fahrenheit was scrambling to catch up.

"Slow down! You can't run all the way to Goodneighbor! Just stop for a second!"

I came to a gradual halt, sweaty and out of breath. Every inch of my body hurt, but I wasn't entirely convinced it was all physical. I dropped down to the ground and sat there waiting for Fahrenheit to reach me.

She jogged up to my side and stopped, leaning forward and bracing her hands on her knees while she gasped for breath. "It's… going to take… at least a couple days… to get there… So just chill." After a moment, she sat down beside me in the middle of the road. "I know what you're thinking…"

"No, you don't," I remarked in a far off way, looking out into the middle distance.

"I have a pretty good guess though. You need to get those thoughts out of your head and seriously think about how you're going to handle this so you don't end up doing something you regret later."

I looked down at the gravel and scooped up a handful of pebbles, squeezing them in my fist.

"Let's just take it slow there, huh? Rushing there isn't going to change anything that's already happened."

I considered her words for a minute. "I guess you're right." I flung the pebbles across the road with a grunt. "I just don't understand…" I looked down at my open palm at the dents the pebbles had made. They were barely distinguishable from the ghoulification scars.

"If I were you, I wouldn't try to. It's just going to make you crazier."

I started digging around at the drugs in my pocket. "Cricket was right. I should have bought more chems." I sucked back some jet and swallowed a few mentats.

"Hey, take it easy."

"Look at me, Fahrenheit," I said through a barely controlled growl. "I _am_ taking it easy."

"Alright, alright." She scanned the horizon nervously. "Whatever you do to Felina, I'm sure she deserves, but try to go easy on MacCready, huh?"

"I could kill them both… but I won't."

"What are you going to do, then?"

"I don't know yet. But I'll figure it out by the time I get there."

* * *

I didn't acknowledge anyone's greeting this time around. It was all a muffled blur to me anyhow. I walked with determination in silence through Goodneighbor to the Third Rail's entrance and strolled calmly through the doors, down the stairs.

Then I saw them. They were seated side by side in the center of the bar, their backs to me. I took slow, perfectly zen steps toward them. MacCready put his arm over her shoulder, and I felt a surge of fury rise up in me.

I couldn't hear what they were saying over the background noise of the bar until I was right behind them.

Felina looked up at him, wearing her playful grin. "Are you coming onto me, MacCready?" she asked him impishly.

My muscles tensed and I could feel my blood pressure rising. "Careful, MacCready!" I burst out. "She'll only break your heart."

They both snapped their heads around. When Felina laid eyes on me, her jaw dropped. "John…!"

"It's Mayor Hancock to you." I shot Whitechapel Charlie a look. "What is this traitor-bitch doing in my bar?"

"Hey - !" She called out defensively.

Charlie spoke over her. "She claims that her ties with the Institute are just a nasty rumor, boss. I believe her, because I know you are a better judge of character than that."

"Yeah, Hancock," MacCready interjected. "I've been around her for weeks now, and I haven't seen any Institute stuff going on with her."

MacCready didn't seem to have any idea how close he was to being cut.

"I'm so glad you're alright!" Felina extended her arms to me as though nothing had happened, and I stepped back.

Felina had no idea how close she was to being choked.

Then she looked up at me with begging, puppy-dog eyes. "Can we go somewhere and talk?"

I took a deep breathe to keep my cool. "Fine. Meet me in my office. I'll be there shortly."

Using every ounce of sheer will I had to remain composed, I turned my back on them and exited the Third Rail.

* * *

When I got to the State House, I ducked into a side room to take a moment. Fahrenheit stayed by my side, determined to be my rock.

"You're doing good, Hancock," she said as she lit a cigarette and offered it to me.

"Doing well," I replied.

"What?"

I took the cigarette from her. "You meant I'm 'doing well,' not 'good'."

"What the fuck are you even talking about?" she said with a scrunched up face. "Trying to give me a English lesson right now…"

"It's Felina. She does that shit to me sometimes."

"She makes you act like a fucking grade-school teacher?" she asked facetiously.

"Only in bed..." I quipped.

Fahrenheit lit a cigarette for herself. "You need to snap out of that shit right-fucking-now. Don't let that bitch psych you out."

I watched unseen from my vantage point as Felina came through the door and climbed the staircase to my office. We finished the rest of our cigarettes in silence. I dropped mine to the floor and stamped it out with the heel of my boot.

"You ready?" Fahrenheit asked me as she put hers out.

"As I'll ever be, I guess."

…

I sat on the couch upstairs in the State House and waited patiently for Hancock. He was sure taking his time getting there, and for a brief moment, I worried he had run again.

Just then, I saw his hat come into view on the spiral stairs. Fahrenheit was only a couple steps behind him. He whispered something to her with his back to me, and she glared at me while he was speaking into her ear. Then he calmly shut the doors behind him, leaving her in the hallway.

"What is it, Felina?"

It felt so good to hear him say my name again. "Querido, I'm so sorry. I made a terrible mistake."

"I know you did." He gazed at me flatly.

"You're not making this easy."

He was still locked into eye contact with me from across the room. His arms were folded as he refused to speak.

"I fucked up, ok? I shouldn't have asked you to go."

"But you did. And then you became the Institute's gopher when you know I won't stand for that kind of shit."

"Shaun asked me to give him a chance, and he es mi hijo, so I did. It didn't work out, but I had to try. Everyone deserves a chance, don't they?"

"You're right - I don't understand what it's like to be a parent, but I do know what it's like to be betrayed by family. That's why I don't get siding with them even when you know what they're doing is wrong. If you remember, I didn't."

"So I guess that makes you better than me?" I remarked harshly.

"No, it just means you let me down." He paused there , allowing the sting of his words to take effect as he walked toward the couch. "But that ain't all of it. You also implied that you couldn't be with me because you weren't over your late husband. But then I got word that you were in my town, using all my chems, and cozying up to MacCready." He was circling me like a shark. "How can you do that to me, Felina?"

"What? You've got to be kidding, right?"

"That's what I heard. I didn't want to believe it, but when I thought about how easily you threw away what we had, it seemed possible. Then when I got back here, I walked in on you flirting with him…"

"No, I wasn't!"

"It's ok, you can tell me. We technically ain't together anymore." He was standing over me now. "So… did you fuck him? When you were scraping your nails down the smooth skin on his back, whose name did you call out? His? Mine? …Nate's?"

My blood boiled. I jumped up and forcefully slapped him across the face.

Without hesitation, he grabbed me by neck. "Don't you _ever_ hit me!"

He wasn't choking me, but he was holding me firmly enough to prove a point. I was seething with anger and panting, when I felt a flash of warmth shoot through my body and the rage melted into passion. I grabbed his shirt and pulled him to me. And just like that, we began kissing with force and desperation.

He pushed me onto the couch, and I scrambled to remove my coat and loosen my tie. He dove on top of me and thrusted his tongue into my mouth. I held him as tightly as I could. He began biting and sucking at my neck. He was being rough, but I didn't care. Never breaking his stride, with one hand, he nimbly unfastened my top button, then the second and third. My hands wandered all over him fiercely, trying to find a way to be closer.

He suddenly pulled away. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Please, don't stop…" I tried to pull him back down, but he wouldn't budge.

"I feel like you're using me." His eyes darted back and forth across my face, like he was looking for something I wouldn't say out loud.

"Using you? For what?"

"As a warm body. Because you don't want to be alone."

"John, no." I sat up. "I love you."

"I want to believe that but… MacCready?"

"There's nothing going on between us. I came back to this town to find you and make things right."

"But I wasn't here, so you two got close enough that word traveled to me halfway across the wasteland..."

"I had to make friends with someone dangerous. When I got here, the town wasn't exactly welcoming to me."

His eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?" He growled.

* * *

After hearing about my captivity experience, he was tearing down the spiral stairs, coat tails fluttering wildly behind him. Fahrenheit was in tow, and I was rushing to catch up with them while rebuttoning my shirt.

He burst through the doors to the Third Rail with a bang as they swung back on their hinges, slamming into the walls. It was gravely silent when he reached the floor of the subway station, and everyone was looking on in terror at Hancock.

"Where's Punt and Arlo?!" He thundered.

Every single person in the bar pointed to a dark table in the back corner. He marched over toward them while everyone watched with intensity. Fahrenheit stayed near me at the foot of the stairs with her gun drawn. I couldn't move.

When he was only a couple steps away, Arlo stood up with his hands on his waistband, adjusting his pants. He calmly began to speak, "Now, Hancock-"

Hancock grabbed him by his arm, whipping him around and shoving him onto the table face first. Bottles crashed off the table and shattered on the floor while Punt jumped backwards out of his chair. He was pushing so hard into Arlo that the table was teetering on two legs. I tingled with excitement as I watched.

Hancock leaned on top of him, holding Arlo's arm behind his back. "Didn't you get the message when I killed Finn?" he growled into the thug's ear. "That ain't how we treat ladies in Goodneighbor. Now tell her you're sorry."

"I-i'm sorry!" He called out, voice wavering and cracking.

Hancock produced a knife with his free hand and thrust it into the man's side with a twist, leaving it there as he released his hold on him. Arlo slid off the table, limp, as it rocked back and forth until all four legs were on the ground once more.

At this, Punt put his hands up, but it was too late. Hancock drew his sawed-off and shot him in the gut, knocking him into the corner.

Hancock pulled his knife out of Arlo and wiped the blade clean on the guy's shirt. He turned around to face the spectators. "Just because I ain't here doesn't mean anarchy is in place. Does everyone understand?"

Everyone's head nodded enthusiastically.

He spun the knife in his hand and slid it into his boot. "So help me, this better be the last time I have to kill someone to teach this town some manners." He calmly walked back to where we were standing, his steps echoing in the silent room. He grabbed my hand tightly and led me back up the stairs with restrained urgency.

"I am so turned on right now," I told him in a hushed tone.

"I'm taking care of that next."

* * *

Already engulfed in each other's eager lips and frantic hands before we reached the top of the stairs, we crashed through his office doors, and he kicked them shut behind us.

Without breaking our embrace, he walked me backwards across the room until we reached his desk. Furiously pushing all the empty bottles and drug paraphernalia off its surface, he lifted me onto it. He wasted no time with buttons this time, ripping my shirt open. They shot all around the room like pellets, landing with little tinkling sounds in every direction around us. He dragged the shirt down my arms, and I pulled my hands free, gasping and kicking my loosely-tied boots off as he squeezed at my breasts.

"Pants off, now!" He barked.

His aggression and poignant desire had me an intimidated mess, but I'll be damned if it wasn't delectable. With complicated, aroused breaths, I fumbled at the clasp of my fly. My fingers were trembling, and I was struggling. He grabbed the loose cloth on either side of my thighs and yanked hard, sending my pants fluttering to the floor below us as he rushed to unfasten his own. His hand plunged to the space between my legs, and the tension spiked the ache I felt for him at my very core.

He grabbed the back of my head by the hair and pulled me to him, forcing his tongue into my mouth and kissing me hard.

My timid hand was creeping toward his heavily swollen manhood when he unexpectedly pulled back. "Turn around," he demanded.

I complied, and he pushed me forward onto the desk, running a hand down my hips and giving my ass a firm smack. I backed up to him, and he rubbed at my entrance a couple times before shoving his entire length inside in one motion. I arched and moaned uncontrollably at the sudden, incredible onslaught.

"Fuck, you're _tight_!" he growled. He pumped painstakingly slowly at first, and every movement he made sent shivers down my spine. My entire body burned with passion and yearning. As he increased his speed, I leaned backwards in rhythm with him, guiding him in as deeply as I could.

"Yes!" I hissed with each thrust as he bottomed out over and over. He kept getting faster until he was pounding at me with no remorse, and I gripped the sides of the desk with white knuckles to keep from slipping. The desk's legs thumped the floor with a rapid _thud-thud-thud_ in time with his violent pumping.

I felt him abruptly grow bigger as he neared his peak. The sensation against my pulsating walls pushed me closer to my edge. "Oh, fuck, _Hancock_!"

He began to growl and moan wildly. His gravelly sounds were the final nail in the coffin for me. Our moans reached the end of their crescendo as his release flooded me. When it was all over, he remained sheathed, slumped over my back as we both continued throbbing and convulsing in time with our hammering pulses.

Panting and sweaty, he eventually lifted me off the desk into a sweet kiss and laid me gently on the mattress on the floor, collapsing next to me.


	16. Track Marks

I was lying in Hancock's bed, basking in the afterglow of our anger-fueled make-up sex while he was running his fingers along the curves of my naked body with a satisfied smile. When he got to my ankles, he stopped.

"What happened here?" he asked with concern for the newly healing scars.

"Just a memento of fighting a deathclaw alone."

"I should have been there…"

"Hey, it's nothing. Don't worry about it."

As this regret reminded him of another, he wrapped his arms around me. "Sorry for going feral, there."

"No complaints on this end," I replied with utmost sincerity. My only concern was the question of how fleeting _this_ moment was. "So, is everything ok between us?" I asked with some trepidation.

"I shouldn't have ever doubted you, Felina. I can't imagine what you must have went through when you found Shaun, but I should have known you'd sort yourself out and do the right thing. I just hope we can pretend like this all never happened."

"So, you'll really take me back?"

"I wish I'd never had to let you go. But, look, I really hate to say this…Just don't make me go through this again, alright? I don't think I could take losing you again."

"Me neither."

"I just hope this doesn't turn out to be one big jet flashback, or I'm going to be really pissed."

I sat up and playfully shoved him with a pillow. His mention of jet made me direct my attention to the drugs on the floor next to us. "Chem break?"

"Sure. But don't get dressed. We ain't anywhere near done here. We've got a lot of lost time to make up for."

I injected some med-x into the blotchy, bruised crook of my elbow, and Hancock took a few mentats. I looked down at the track marks on my arms. "I don't want to go back to Sanctuary," I confessed.

He gently brushed his palm over my bruises, hiding them from my view. "You don't have to. You can stay here with me in Goodneighbor. Ya got nothing to worry about anymore with me watching your back."

"Or we can just wander," I pronounced. "We'll dispatch Commonwealth justice as needed, just wandering. I have everything I need right here with me," I said, lacing my fingers in his.

"I'd follow you anywhere, love." He smiled. "You and me together, the world ain't got a prayer."

* * *

The first rays of dawn crept over the horizon as we were setting out with no definitive direction. I didn't care where the wind took us. Aside from the cravings I would get in the valleys of my highs, Hancock was all I wanted. I felt whole again.

Out in the Commonwealth, we made a game out of christening every raider camp we conquered. This usually resulted in a nap, which, coupled with the constant stream of chemicals in our bodies, made sleeping at night seem arbitrary. I pretty much had no concept of time outside of timing my chem hits, so we traveled around the clock - exploring, sleeping at erratic hours, stopping whenever we felt like it, helping when we passed someone who needed it, dealing death as necessary. It was ultimate freedom.

We were west of Diamond City when Hancock recognized a girl down the road a ways off with a trader caravan. "She has some of the best drugs in the Commonwealth. Hang back while I check the stash. She knows how good her stuff is, and I don't want her to see how many caps we have, or she'll gouge us."

We sat down on the side of the road to count our caps and take inventory of our chems. While we were sitting among the neat little stacks of our stash, I saw Lynn coming up the road toward us with Paladin Danse and a Ms. Nanny bot.

"Hey, Felina! Hancock! How's it going?"

I became self-conscious of our pharmacy and bank roll on display. "Fine."

Danse looked at us in disgust. "Nice to see you have your priorities in order."

I started to fume, but Hancock changed the subject before I could react. "Where did you find the Ms. Nanny?"

"Oh, you mean Curie?" Lynn said with a smile. "Vault 81."

Curie addressed us cordially with a thick French accent. "Madame Lynn and Monsieur Danse rescued me and saved a little boy from a rare disease. It was most curious -"

"Ella cree muy muy," I interrupted bitterly. "Lynn is the superhero the Commonwealth needs, but not the one it deserves."

"I do not know what you mean by this, Madame." Curie replied.

Lynn looked a little hurt. "Well, you two seem busy, so we'll get out of your hair."

"What was all that?" Hancock asked once they were gone.

"She just thinks she's better than me, and it kinda makes me feel like shit."

"I didn't get that impression at all. Is something on your mind?"

"No, it's nothing. I'm just coming down and a little irritable. I could use some med-x."

Hancock uneasily handed me a syringe from the pile.

* * *

We stayed adrift throughout the summer. The weather was perfect to me, and I was on a particularly potent combination of chems when I started hearing a voice.

"Is someone there? Get me out of this thing!"

At first I dismissed it as an audio hallucination, but then I heard it again.

"I can hear you out there. Please, I've been trapped in here for so long!"

I stopped and turned to Hancock, wide-eyed.

He met my gaze. "You heard that, too?"

I nodded. We both started scanning the horizon for the source. Hancock stepped into the remains of a roofless building with walls crumbled down to waist height and began looking under the debris. I strolled around the building's corner toward a pile of tires and a rusty fridge.

"Let me out!" The voice called out again.

I approached the fridge cautiously, still having a hard time distinguishing reality from crazy trip. "Is someone in there?" I said to the refrigerator.

"Yes! My name is Billy. I hid in here to get away from the bombs. But there isn't a handle on the inside. And it's really dark in here…"

I motioned for Hancock, and he started coming towards where I was.

I shook my head, trying to regain a little sobriety. "The bombs were over 200 years ago. You're that old?"

"I don't know how long I've been in here. A long time though. A really long time. Please, I don't want to die in here."

"Okay, okay. I'll let you out." I tried the handle, but it was rusted stuck. I started searching through my bag for something useful, but before I could find anything, Hancock blew the door off the hinges with his shotgun. Eh, whatever works.

"Ugh! My legs are so stiff!" A child-sized ghoul crawled out of the fridge, squinting. "It's really bright out. I haven't seen the sun in sooo long."

I had never seen a ghoul child before. I smiled at him. "Hey, Billy."

He grabbed onto my leg, a little shaky. "Thank you! Thank you so much!" He looked over at Hancock. "Hey, you're all burned up like me!"

"It's radiation damage, kid. You'll be alright." He rubbed Billy's head. "So what's the story of you and that fridge?"

"It happened so long ago. Back before everything got wrecked. When I heard the sirens, I tried to find someplace safe. When everything started to shake and fall apart, I just crawled inside. When it got quiet again, I tried to get out, but there isn't a handle on the inside." His eyes got large and shimmered. "I just want to go home. Can you help me, please?"

"Well, um, where did you live?" I asked.

"Quincy. But I don't know how to get there. Everything's so different. It's all blown up. I just want to find my mom and dad."

I felt a familiar maternal warmth blanket me, and I shot Hancock a look. He had a friendly smile on his face, but I could tell by his eyes he was thinking the same thing I was – this kid's parents are dead. I didn't have the heart to tell him that, though. "Then let's go find your home."

"Don't worry, little guy," Hancock added. "You're safe with us."

We started off toward Quincy. All around us was the usual partially demolished buildings and rubble with very little signs of life. I had never heard of any surviving settlements near Quincy - only tales of Gunners and super mutants hailing from the surrounding areas. This really didn't bode well for Billy.

I had so much I wanted to discuss with Hancock, but not in front of the kid. How long were we going to have to look for Billy's parents before we told him what we already knew? I wouldn't mind adopting him, if Hancock was okay with that. It would require a lot of changes to our style of living, though.

We were almost to Quincy when we came across a group of three Gunners traveling the opposite direction down the road.

Gunners were different from raiders. They were more organized and had relatively better weapons and armor. They were more dangerous in a fight, but discerning when picking their battles. It was possible they wouldn't bother us, but I still grabbed Billy's hand and checked on Hancock. I could tell by his posture he was on alert. My other hand was already inching toward my weapon when one of them approached us to talk.

"Cute kid. Is he for sale?"

"Wait, what?" That threw me for a loop.

"I'll give you 200 caps for him."

I held Billy's hand tighter. "Why do you want to _buy_ a ghoul child?"

"Ghouls are immune to radiation, don't age, and don't need to eat. You can work 'em real hard."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "What kind of person are you?!"

"The kind who does whatever it takes to survive out here," he replied callously.

 _Oh, fuck this guy_. Quick as an old west gunslinger, I drew my pistol and shot him right between the eyes. The Gunner remained standing as though nothing was wrong for a split moment before he began falling over.

"Billy, hide!" I yelled.

Before the body could hit the pavement, Hancock had already sprung into action, attacking the other two Gunners. I joined the firefight while Billy ducked behind a broken down car.

We were trading bullets with the mercenaries for a minute when one of their shots hit the gas tank on the car Billy was hiding behind. "Shit!" I ran to the car and dove on top of Billy, using the inertia from my sprint to roll us away from the vehicle. Moments later, the car exploded.

The force of the blast threw Hancock at the feet of one of the Gunners. He put a foot on the tail of Hancock's coat and held him there as he aimed his gun point blank at Hancock's face. Swift as a fox, Hancock drew his combat knife from his boot and sliced at his heel, rolling to the side. The tendon snapped like a bundle of rubber bands, and the Gunner screamed and fell. Hancock plunged the knife into the Gunner's side and pulled it across his gut as he jumped up. The mercenary's intestines spilled out, and he went limp.

Behind him, the last Gunner was pulling his gun level with the back of Hancock's head as I sent a delicately aimed bullet into his ear and out the other side. Hancock instinctively swung around at the sound, just in time to be showered in Gunner brains.

I put my palm up to my mouth and stifled a laugh. Hancock had a flat, irritated expression as he wiped the bloody chunks off his face.

I glanced down at Billy, who was staring, mouth agape. I put a hand over his eyes, but it didn't matter. He had already seen more than he should have.

He pushed my hand out of the way.

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked him.

He started to cry. I got down on one knee and put my arms around him. He buried his face in my chest, shaking and sobbing. "I just want to go home!"

I looked with desperation over at Hancock, but was only met with the same hopeless frown that I had.

He came over and put a hand on Billy's shoulder. "Come on, kid. We're almost there." His tone was soothing, but Billy never saw the worried look s on our faces.

Once Billy had calmed down some, we continued on our way. After another mile of walking, he perked up. "There it is! That's my house!" He took off running toward it. "Mom? Dad? Are you in there?"

I sighed as we continued reluctantly toward the house. Here we go. Time to break the kid's heart.

Then I heard a female voice call out from inside, "Billy? Billy!"

Hancock and I exchanged a surprised glance. We jogged toward the house.

"Son? Is that really you?" This time it was a male voice. Then we observed as two ghouls ran outside to meet the boy in front of the house. They dropped to their knees and embraced him.

"It's me! It's really me!"

"Oh my god! We thought you were dead!" exclaimed the female ghoul.

"What happened to you? You're all burned up, too."

"We're ghouls, Billy," the man told him.

His mom was crying tears of joy. "Don't worry about it, Billy. Your dad and I don't care what you look like. We still love you."

"I love you, too, mom. I missed you guys. It's been so long."

His dad looked up at us. "Thank you for bringing us back our boy."

Hancock smiled. "He's a good kid."

"How can we ever repay you?"

"No need," I told him. I was touched by witnessing this reunion, and I reached for Hancock's hand. He squeezed back as I wiped a little tear from my cheek. This is what I imagined it would have been like when I found Shaun. Lucky parents.

* * *

Not too long after the kid in the fridge incident, I started feeling particularly sick, and no combination of chems was alleviating my illness. I ran my symptoms by Hancock to see if he could explain it as some side effect of the chems, but he said it didn't fit.

It was early morning, and I had been awake for a while, throwing up. I came back to the sleeping bag where Hancock was still laying and sat down next to him. "Here's a thought….what if I'm pregnant?"

He smirked while he stretched. "Not possible, love. Ghouls don't function that way."

That hadn't occurred to me, but I was more concerned that I could add a missed period to my list of ailments. "I've been pregnant before. I know what the signs are," I told him. "You became a ghoul in an unusual manner. What if you don't fit the typical…uh…reproductive profile?"

He shook his head. "All that radiation? Makes it kind of impossible. I hope you ain't too disappointed." He caressed my arm.

"I'm not entirely convinced, though. I need to know, because I would have to stop using…"

His face got serious. "You know, I've been watching you, and ya might need to slow down anyhow. And that's coming from me."

"I do the same amount of chems that you do."

"I know, and that's the problem. Ghouls are less affected by chems, remember?"

I was ashamed that he had to say that to me, but I tried not to show it. Instead, I gave him a pissed off look.

"Hey, I ain't trying to judge, believe me. I'm just a little worried, is all. Tell you what." He pulled my wrist up to our faces, positioning the pip-boy between us and switching to the map. "Let's get you back to Goodneighbor and let Dr. Amari have a look at you. Whatever is wrong, we should still probably get you some medical care."

It took us a few days to get to there. I was feeling even worse by then, and Hancock had to hold me up as we walked through the streets to the Memory Den. Dr. Amari seemed extremely concerned by my pale appearance and had me lay on a gurney while she drew some blood and ran tests. I saw Hancock trying to speak to her discreetly across the room, but I couldn't hear what they were saying…

…

"This is not good," she told me.

I was already more worried than I had ever been in my life, but when those words left her mouth, I was almost certain I was going to lose Felina. "Is she going to be okay?"

"Yes, but had you come any later, probably not."

I began to calm down as I observed her readying a bag of radaway. "So, it's just radiation poisoning?"

"Not just radiation poisoning. Chem poisoning. Her immune system is extremely weak. She needs to stay close by until we are positive that all danger has passed." She thumped the tip of a needle. "You two are _not_ good for each other."

"What?!" I didn't see how that comment was relevant.

"You're both enablers for each other's bad habits. And the radiation poisoning? That's going to be a constant problem as long as she's with _you_. That's the reality of things. And the heavy chem use only exacerbates things…."

…

After several minutes, Hancock returned to my side. "It's official," he said. "You are most definitely _not_ pregnant."

I gazed up at him weakly. "Yeah, I kinda gathered that. I've never felt this bad before."

"I just wanted to let you know that," he continued, deliberately avoiding my eyes, "she also confirmed it ain't a possibility in the future either."

I felt entirely too shitty to even contemplate that statement any deeper. "So what's wrong with me then?"

Dr. Amari approached. "Radiation sickness. I'm going to assume this is your first time." She began attaching a bag of radaway to the IV drip.

"Yeah, it is. I've always been extremely careful, though. Every time we've gone to the Glowing Sea, I've been in power armor. The only water I drink is purified, and we cook everything we eat. That eliminates the rads in the food, doesn't it?"

"You haven't exactly been avoiding every possible source of radiation."

"What am I missing? Rad storms? I keep a hazmat suit in my bag…"

Hancock raised his hand.

"Silly girl," Dr. Amari smiled. "You have been having copious amounts of unprotected sex with a ghoul! What did you think was going to happen?"

"Sorry," he muttered to me. "I've never stuck around with a softskin long enough before to realize that could happen."

"It's advanced pretty far, too, but you'll be fine. I'm surprised it took you this long to notice. You must have a pretty high threshold for pain."

"She does," Hancock answered on my behalf.

"I'm going to give you some rad-x and radaway to take with you, but you need to be more careful in the future. That pip-boy of yours should give you a reading on how many rads you've soaked up, so you should pay more attention to it. I'm sure you've already heard it's possible for prolonged exposure to radiation to turn you into a ghoul, but more often than not, it just kills you instead. Keep that in mind."

* * *

Once she was finished treating me and giving me the obligatory "chems are bad" speech, she released me. We decided to hang around town for a few days to make sure I was fully recovered. We slept in the Old State House and killed a lot of time at the Third Rail.

One night, we were there watching one of Magnolia's sets when a woman I didn't know approached and sat at our table with us in the back of the bar.

"Hey ya, Hancock, it's been a while. Can I interest you in another tour?" she offered with sloppy double meaning.

"Sorry, I ain't a touring ghoul anymore. The one I got ain't the type you go wandering on." He looked over at me.

I was happy with his response, but it didn't change the fact I wanted to kick her teeth in. I was still too weak to if I even tried. Instead, I gave her an "eat shit" look until she got up and left.

I was mentally filing her face away for my personal grudge list when Hancock waved a hand in front of me. "Hey, you ok?"

"Yeah. Just still a little queasy, I guess."

He smiled warmly. "Don't let that girl's comments get to ya."

"Hey, I'm fine. Really." I sucked down some purified water through a straw.

Magnolia's song came to an end and she left the stage for a break. Hancock stood up from the table. "I'll be right back."

Still disenchanted by the not-so subtle reminder of Hancock's reputation, I rolled my eyes, assuming he was going to flirt with Mags, but then I saw him walk right past her with nothing more than a nod. He approached one of the band members by the stage and had a long conversation with him out of earshot. After several minutes, Hancock pulled his bag of caps out and counted a large pile of them out on a table, while the musician watched. When he was done, the band member collected the bottle caps and handed Hancock a large oblong case with shoulder straps on it. They shook hands, and Hancock came back to our table with the case.

"What is that?" I asked him suspiciously.

"A gift for you, love." He was grinning like crazy as he placed it on the table in front of me.

"Nooo…." I shook my head.

"Oh, yes." He released the latches on its side and lifted it open. Inside was a surprisingly well taken care of dreadnought acoustic guitar with a sunburst finish.

"….I can't play that." I shook my head but was smiling nonetheless.

"You have all the time in the world to learn. All those times we are sitting around on mentats, doing nothing, that would be the perfect time to just mess around with it."

"How much did you pay for that thing? Too much, I'm sure…"

"It doesn't matter, it's already yours! I really wanted to give you something special. Just say that you'll take it."

"Of course." I put my arms around his neck and kissed him.

Later that night, when we went back to the State House, I pulled the guitar out and cycled through all the chords I could remember. Before long, my fingertips started to burn. I took some med-x and mentats and continued playing. After a while, I was able to piece together an old song I used to play as a kid:

" _To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day_

_Hardly spoke to folks around him didn't have too much to say_

_No one dared to ask his business no one dared to make a slip_

_For the stranger there among them had a big iron on his hip_

_Big iron on his hip…_ "

After I finished the whole thing, Hancock gave me a soft round of applause. "See? What did I tell ya?"

"This would be impossible without mind-altering and pain-killing substances, but yes, I played a song. It's only like three chords, so it's not that impressive, really."

"Sure it was," he smiled. "Was that…Marty Robbins?"

I was pleased. "You remembered!"

"So are you going to play me some more of your 'cowboy ballads'?"

"I will, as soon as I can figure some out. It reminds me of my childhood. In the southwest. Where the winters felt like our summers."

"Yeah, and what were the summers like?" he asked.

"Hot and sweaty like Satan's balls. Man, it was wonderful."


	17. Dystopian Paradise

Eventually, we left Goodneighbor again. We headed east until we hit the ocean, and then we followed the shoreline up north. When we caught sight of a lighthouse in the distance, Hancock made it known that he had every intention of fucking me at the top of that thing, and it quickly became a race to get there.

I had the pip-boy tuned to the classical station – our favorite station when on mentats. _Tragic Overture_ was playing as we approached the lighthouse. It was twilight, and I could see the movement of people through the windows of the adjacent house silhouetted by their lanterns inside.

We didn't go through the trouble of being stealthy during that era. Now that we were getting high as a duo, we mutually enjoyed the thrill of rushing – or even stumbling – into battle, feeling invincible with no concept of danger. The residents didn't appear to be raiders anyway, so I didn't bother to turn off my pip-boy radio or draw my pistol, but when I looked over at Hancock, he was pulling his gun out.

I knew for sure that they weren't friendly before we ever reached the door. The inhabitants opened fire, and a hit landed directly in the center of Hancock's chest.

He didn't flinch. "Huh?" He was looking down for a wound, but there was no blood, nothing.

With dulled reflexes from being both high and in awe, I just stood there as I got hit as well, and the radiation sickness pains come back instantaneously. I doubled over on the ground, my hands fumbling for the rad-x in my waist pouch.

"Gamma guns!" Hancock exclaimed.

Maybe we should have been sneaky, after all.

Hancock charged forward and started taking them out, while I crawled for cover behind a tree, digging around in my bag frantically for some radaway. I assumed they lost me, because no more shots were fired in my direction. After what felt like ages, the fighting sounds died down, and Hancock waded back to me through the tall, brown grass.

"Are you ok?" He asked, extending a hand to help me up.

"Yeah, I will be. Are you sure they're all gone?" After getting radiation sickness twice in rapid succession, I was starting to feel vulnerable, again.

"Positive. Those gamma guns were the only protection they had, so they were no problem for me. C'mon, let's get you inside."

The "lanterns" I saw from outside were actually iron wall sconces, demonstrating that the house was wired with electricity. The interior was decorated lavishly with intricate dark-stained wooden wainscoting and fleur de lis wallpaper. Downstairs, there was a couch, a wall safe, a standing piano, a full kitchen, and bar. There was a desk with a terminal that Hancock snooped around on while I continued up the stairs.

The second floor opened up to a bedroom with a king size bed, completely made up with comforters, sheets, and pillows. It was a sight for sore eyes. The wall directly to the left of the stairs was semi-demolished to what would have probably been another bedroom, but served more as a balcony with no roof over it. I walked out onto it and admired the unobstructed view of the ocean where the eastern wall was completely missing. The rest of the room was still enclosed and directly behind me were two plastic chairs and a folding table with a chess set on it.

Back inside, there was an intact bathroom. I reached over and pushed the lever down on the toilet and, to my amazement, it flushed. There wasn't a shower, but there was a tub, which I also tested and was delighted to find it had warm, running water.

I collapsed onto the extravagant bed and sank face up into the plump mattress. It was wonderful. Looking above me, the roof was partially missing in this room, making picturesque portions of the clear, starry night visible. This was like a pinche resort compared to anywhere else I had stayed in the post-war Commonwealth.

Hancock came up the stairs and found me on the bed. "Wow! This is nice."

"I think we should prepare for an extended stay," I told him.

"We're gonna be here _at least_ a couple days since you they tagged you with one of those radiation guns."

"That's not what I'm talking about. Electricity, a real bed… The bathroom works."

"No shit?"

"See for yourself"

He disappeared from my view and after a moment, I heard him also flush the toilet. "Oh, I like that," he called from the other room.

I laughed. "Check out the view from the balcony."

He emerged from the bathroom, still buckling his pants, and walked out the opening in the wall. "Man, check out that view." He returned after a moment and reclined on the bed next to me. "So get this. Those people shooting radiation at us? They were Children of Atom. They were operating their cult out of this house, performing the 'will of their god.' Guess their god didn't plan on them meeting us, huh?"

"Well, they don't need it anymore. I say we take a bath, get loaded up, and sit on the balcony and watch the ocean waves."

"Sounds like a plan. I'll draw the bath. You should take some more rad-x..."

Afterwards, we played chess for a while. When we finally came inside, we broke in the bed and then laid there, watching the twinkling night sky to the sounds of classical music. There were never this many stars visible before the war.

"Sorry for almost fucking you into a ghoul," Hancock said, out of nowhere.

"Oh, right. The rad sickness."

"It's too bad things didn't go that way, actually. If you _had_ turned ghoul, we could do this long term, ya know?"

I smiled. "Yeah, that wouldn't be so bad."

"Everything that's happened lately got me thinking, though… If I could give you a child, I would. This is the first time in my life I'm actually upset that I can't get someone pregnant."

"It turns out the universe never intended for me to be a mom, but don't worry about it. I'm at peace with it. You're my world, now."

"And you're mine, which is why I've been thinking…" He repositioned himself on his side to face me. "I'd like to know…"

He paused with a sigh. "…What your thoughts are on the future. On us. I know you care about me and all, but I've never fallen so hard before. And I don't ever want to be without you, again. I apologize ahead of time for bringing this up…"

He hesitated again. "But I wonder if you still consider yourself attached to Nate. I don't really know where you stand on all that…and if you consider me..."

He trailed off in frustration. "The chems are probably clouding my judgment. You can forget I said any of this if I'm outta line." He moved to his back once more, uneasily propped up as he leaned on his elbows.

I knew what he was getting at. I lifted my necklace up and dangled the wedding ring on it in my face, considering what he said. I still felt a little guilty whenever I thought about Nate, but there was nothing that could bring him back. In the end, he wouldn't want me torturing myself over it. He would want me to move on and be happy.

Jerking the ring forward and snapping the chain off my neck, I rolled over on top of Hancock and sat up with my legs on either side of him. Looking down into his eyes, I took his left hand and slid the ring onto his finger.

"Does that mean…?"

"Exactly what you think it means, querido."

"Felina…are you sure? I mean, don't get me wrong. I ain't trying to talk you out of it. _Nothing_ could make me happier. But this is kinduva big deal…Is this really what you want?"

"I'd like nothing more." I steadied myself with my hands on his chest. "Eres mi todo."

He smiled. "What does _that_ mean?"

"You are my everything."

I'd never seen such tenderness and adoration in his face before, and I could feel his heart beating wildly under my palms. "Felina, I promise to take care of you forever, to be a man you can be proud of."

"You already are. Let me be your wife, and I promise to make you happy as long as I live."

"You already do."

"So, how do we make this legal?" my inner lawyer asked.

"Well, this _is_ technically a house of god, so if you mean all that stuff you just said and did, then the Commonwealth only requires one more act to make it official."

"What's that?"

"Consummation," he replied with a sly smile.

…

At the suggestion, she leaned in and placed the most heavenly kiss in the history of kisses on my lips. My hands were heedlessly drawn to her smooth, bare back, careening down to her hips in slow delectation. She brought her mouth down my neck, delicately touching her lips to my collarbone, then my chest. Every warm, luscious touch she landed got progressively lower as she slid herself down my body, and my fingers grazed her contours as she slipped beyond my reach.

She stopped with her face right above my already achingly stiff shaft and glanced up at me with that impish expression before slightly parting her soft, pouty lips and touching down on my tip, tracing the head with her tongue in tentative agility.

My eyelids fluttered as the ripple of bliss spread throughout me. She was in absolute control of me on every level possible, and this simple act that gave me so much pleasure was symbolic of it.

With her dainty fingers around the base, she carefully added more length inside, sucking increasingly harder. She danced her tongue around my flesh, paying attention to every inch. She was markedly more skilled at this than when we first began to explore each other all those months back – no doubt from all the practice we had gotten in – and I reveled in the little glances she shot up at me that said she knew exactly what she was doing to me. After getting comfortable in the slow rhythm she had created, her hand suddenly let go, and she took me all the way to her throat.

It was more than I was ready for, and I arched involuntarily. "Oh, shit! Felina-a-a!"

She was unfettered by my sudden movement, bearing down a couple more times before swallowing the inevitable result. I exhaled from deep within as my muscles slacked, and a shiver quaked through my body. She lifted her head up and looked me right in the eye while she dragged the back of her hand across her lips, revealing a self-satisfied smile. I couldn't believe this beautiful, pure-hearted sex goddess was really my wife.

As she climbed across me, I was acutely aware of every connection her limbs made with my skin. I pulled her close, kissing her intensely, and drawing in deep breathes as I rode out the ebb of her handiwork.

She pulled away and sat up to speak. "How was it, querido?"

I smiled, my eyes half-closed. "Do you even have to ask?"

She shook her head 'no' as her hand traveled down her stomach toward her own aroused sex. I stopped her short of her destination. "Sit on my face."

"What?"

"You heard me." I grabbed onto her hips and guided her upwards. Her legs cradled my head and she braced herself on the bed's headboard. I plunged my tongue into her, sweeping the walls just inside and savoring her juices. I drew my tongue up her slick crevice, sucking at her clit. When I released it, she bucked and let out a quiet, drawn-out moan. I went back at it with a flick of the tip, making subtle circles. She began to lightly grind on my face as I built up pressure and speed. I groaned into her, and she arched at the vibrations.

I could feel her legs shaking against my shoulders. I almost had her. I lapped at her hungrily and her moans became more desperate.

Her thighs gripped against the sides of my head as she softly called out my name. I dipped my tongue inside her again to drink her up as she exhaled a drawn out sigh. She heaved herself over to the empty side of the mattress, panting and holding herself, and she turned her head towards me, her eyelids lazy with gratification. "You're so good to me… I couldn't ask for a better husband," she said in almost a whisper.

Hearing those words on her lips blanketed me with a sense of unfamiliar serenity. I rolled over onto her, easing my arms around her body. "I'm all yours."

She pulled me to her with possessive purpose, sweeping kisses all over my face and breathing lightly into my ear, "Take me, John."

The sound of that phrase stirred me. I moved my hand between us and downward, thrusting the hard length of cock into my palm and guiding it to her. With controlled passion, I slowly sank into her sublime passage, inch by inch. Her cries ramped up with every little bit further I drove, her back drawing away from the mattress. "Please," she began to whimper. "Please…"

I moaned a content growl. Her begging was only building my desire.

"Please, John."

Not this time. This wasn't a fuck. I was making love to my wife for the first time. I pulled out a little, her center gripping at me, and I began working my way in again. She writhed in ecstasy under me, her fingers clutching at the loose blanket at her sides. "Oh, please…" she panted, pulling on the folds of fabric.

I submerged a little deeper with every careful thrust. Once I had worked myself all the way in, I began grinding at a slow, steady pace until her breathing became frantic, and I could feel her tightening around me.

"Ah, ah, ahhhh….!" Each note was higher than the last. I looked down at her face, and she was completely flush, her eyes wide, and she was gasping for breath. "John…"

Her muscles pulsed around me as I dipped into her repeatedly. Her convulsions eventually subsided as I continued with the pace I had set, savoring every delicious stroke. After a while, her muscles began to tense up again, and I could feel my own orgasm trying to surface, but I fought it.

"Oh, _fuck_!" Her hand drew up to her face, and she clinched at her tousled hair. Her chest rapidly rose and fell as she rode out another peak.

I didn't stop, looking her over with a knowing smile. "Were you counting, love? That's three…"

She couldn't reply, panting fiercely. The smoldering fire in her eyes pierced me, and I felt a surge of electricity spark through me. I couldn't hold out much longer. I let go a little and my speed naturally increased. Her carnal moans commenced again as she pushed up into my thrusts, eliciting those wild growls from me. Everything about this felt so right.

"Oh, Felina…" I was teetering over the edge.

" _John_!" She called to me again through the recognizable convulsions of another orgasm, and I was seeing spots. I was hard as diamonds, and the friction against her throbbing walls was finally too much. Maintaining our connection, I lowered myself onto her glistening body and crushed my lips to hers. I came – hard – thrusting into her mindlessly, long past being drained empty, and draping my exhausted body over hers.

Neither one of us spoke as we lay out of breath in a hot, sticky heap. Once I had grown soft, I pressed my lips to hers gently one more time before rolling back to my side of the bed, folding my arms behind my head.

"Four," she breathed out with a breath she had been holding, staring past the roof hole dreamily.

"I'll try to do better next time," I replied.

She slowly turned her head toward mine, giving me the shocked, perplexed look I was hoping for with that comment.

Turning onto my side to face her and resting my head on one hand, I put my other over her, caressing the supple curves of her torso. "I love you, Felina."

Her expression softened into adoration. "Felina who?" she asked sweetly.

My heart melted. "I love you, Felina Hancock."

She nestled herself closer to me, tucking herself into my chest. "And I love you, John Hancock."

I held her close as I felt a wave of tranquility wash over me, nudging me to sleep.

* * *

The morning sun blushed dramatically over the rippling ocean waves as we watched on high from the lighthouse. We had climbed to its top for our first love-making of the day, and were taking our time coming down from our throne. I felt like we had literally conquered the world together, beating it into submission with our wanton, animalistic sex acts.

Once we finally made it back to the house, Felina cracked open a wall safe, revealing a hefty chem stash inside. She pulled out mentats and med-x with both hands, holding them up in a victorious display. "Jackpot!" she exclaimed.

"I think the divine forces set this house up deliberately for us." I reached past her into the safe and pulled out a cigar from an open box. I sat down at the bar with it, dragging a bottle of top shelf brandy towards me and examining the label.

Felina followed me over, stepping to the bartender side and placing the drugs she had in a pile on the counter. She ducked down out of view for a moment and returned with two glasses, pouring the brandy for me.

"Thank you, love." I smiled, taking the drink. She poured herself one and sat at the stool beside me. We lifted our glasses, touching them together in toast before taking a sip.

I slid my knife out of my boot and delicately sliced the tip of the cigar. Then I pulled my lighter from my pocket and flicked the top open. In a moment of thought, I hesitated to put the fire to it. "This thing is pretty fancy. I ain't sure I can enjoy it in good conscious without a smoking jacket," I joked.

Felina's eyes lit up. "I'll be right back," she said as she bolted up the stairs.

I chuckled to myself as I put the flame to the cigar's tip. I took a few puffs of the stogie until it was properly lit, filling the room with its rich smoke.

Felina returned in a slinky sequin gown, tossing me an actual smoking jacket.

I looked down at the velvety garment in my hand in surprise. "You gotta be kidding me."

"Yeah," she said matter-of-factly. "It comes in three colors. I brought you the red one."

I shrugged. "Alright, then." I changed into the jacket, and Felina took my frock coat for me, hanging it on the coat rack.

She shot up some med-x, lit herself a cigarette, and then stretched out on the chaise lounge across from the bar. The flashy gown clung to her gracefully, showing more skin than she normally would in her everyday clothes. My eyes traced her length from the bottom up as I indulged in the view, still reeling from the events of the past 24 hours. When my eyes reached her face, I was met with a knowingly seductive look.

"What?" She asked invitingly.

I smiled, taking another puff from the luxury cigar. "Don't mind me, love."

"Do you like what you see?"

"You know I do."

She finished her cigarette and started off the couch. "I don't know how I feel about the sequins. I think I need to try out a few other things." I admired the bounce of her backside as she climbed the stairs again. I carried the brandy over to the piano, placing it on the top and opening the cover. I tentatively pressed a couple of the keys, and a perfectly tuned harmony pleasantly pierced the air.

Felina came back down the stairs in a lacy yellow dress this time, turning thoughtfully in front of me as she examined its various qualities.

"That one's nice, too," I told her.

"Yeah, but which one's better?"

"It doesn't matter to me. Anything is beautiful on you."

She giggled and raced to the second floor again.

Felina would occasionally return wearing different attire, demonstrating their various aspects for me. Each time she would leave, I would continue messing around on the piano. When she came down in a simple blue house dress was when she looked the happiest.

"It's comfortable, too." she told me twirling like she had in my dreams long ago before we ever knew each other intimately. The gathers of the skirt gracefully flowed outward.

"I think that's the one," I told her with decisiveness.

"Me, too." She glanced out the window, the sunlight glowing on her face. "I think I'd like to go outside for a bit."

"Go ahead, love. I'm gonna stay in for now."

I looked after her with a grin as she pranced out the door. I walked over to the coat rack and placed the jacket on it. Leaning on the door frame, I lingered to watch her picking the dark blue and purple hubflowers dotting the lawn. She tucked one into her hair and gathered the rest in the drape of her skirt, dancing like a sprite through the nautical breeze.

I went back to the piano and precariously stumbled through a song I had spent many hours practicing as a child. By the time Felina returned, I had it sounding like an actual song.

"That's beautiful," she told me as she placed her hubflower bouquet onto the bar. "What is that?"

"I don't remember," I said, pecking at the ivory. "I think it's Chopin."

I kept playing as she slid her arms around me from behind. The notes hung in the air, wavering with my lack of confidence with the instrument, but still coming together musically. She carefully slid onto the bench. As the last note faded, she leaned her head on my shoulder.

"That was…" She didn't finish her sentence.

"Unwieldy."

She took my hand as she stood up, gently tugging at me. "I want you right now," she said with mesmerized softness.

Compelled, I rose from the bench, and she led us up the stairs.


	18. Diamond City

One evening, Hancock and I were relaxing on the dock as the sun set. The waves gently crashed below us and the air smelled of salt. From this angle, it was easy to forget that the world had ended.

There was a tray of crushed up orange mentats between us that we would periodically pass back and forth and snort from. I took a hit through a rolled up pre-war note and handed it over. "Our time here has really been doing me some good."

Hancock raised his head up from the tray, still sucking the powder back. "Yeah?" He had an adorable orange powder mustache around his ruined nose.

"Since I got back from the Institute, my heart hasn't really been into the whole helping others thing because I was feeling so sorry for myself, but I decided to keep doing it for you, querido."

"I don't really know how I feel about that…" he said, rubbing at his orange cavity.

"Hear me out. If it wasn't for you, I would have given up altogether, so it was a good thing. It was a really dark time for me, but you helped me get through it."

A smile slowly stretched across his face. "You know, I could say the same for you. If I hadn't thrown in with you, I'd probably be in a gutter somewhere getting gnawed on by radroaches."

"This little dystopian honeymoon of ours has reignited something in me, and I think it's time we bring something to a head."

"What's that, love?"

"Do you know Piper?"

He lowered his eyebrows. "The chick that runs the newspaper in Diamond City?"

"That's her. I ran into her shortly after I got out of the vault, and she wanted me to do an interview for her, but I never went back to Diamond City. I was thinking I should give her that interview."

Hancock grimaced. "That's gonna be a problem for me, since the whole 'no ghouls allowed' policy kind of prohibits me from visiting Diamond City. Not that I would want to anyway."

"No, think about it. We could pay her a visit, and I could confirm her suspicions about the mayor being a synth. She can publish it in _Publick Occurrences_ and then you could pay him the respects he has always deserved. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

He took a moment to mull it over. "You know, it's probably the right thing to do."

* * *

If you're familiar with Fenway Park, then you know where Diamond City is. The settlement was built in the famous baseball stadium, though I doubt anyone living there now understands the significance of that. Mayor McDonough resided in a private box up in the stands and a robust marketplace was in the center field. The city had a school, a church, a radio tower, and more, all protected by the stadium's great green walls. It was easily the Commonwealth's most prosperous community.

As we neared the city's entrance, we started seeing the occasional guard in the baseball catcher's gear. Hancock was wearing a gas mask over his face, the plan being to just walk right in. Hey, it worked for Bobbi No-Nose.

I pushed the call button at the gate, and Danny Sullivan answered.

"Danny, it's Felina. You remember me. Piper told you I was a trader."

"Yeah, I remember you."

"Can I come in?"

"Sure, hang on."

As the rolling door began to rise, I unbuttoned the top buttons on my denim dress.

"What are you doing?" I couldn't see Hancock's face, but his tone seemed slightly miffed.

"It's in case we have to come up with a Plan B. If things go to shit, meet me at Piper's house."

The gate was open completely, and Danny stepped forward. "Once again, I'm not seeing any indication that you are a trader," he said, eyeballing me. "Where are your wares?"

I pushed up my bosom and got closer, swaying my hips. "A super mutant back there ambushed me and forced me to run. It took out my pack brahmin," I said, motioning toward an alley.

I watched his eyes trail down to my cleavage. "Uh huh. And who is this guy?" He pointed at Hancock. "Your guard?"

"That's right!" I lightly swept a hand across Danny's shoulder. "You're quite astute."

Persuasion attempt fail. "I'm going to need him to remove his mask."

"What?"

"For identification purposes."

I panicked and pushed his face into my breasts.

While his face was buried there, Hancock threw a frag grenade into the alleyway. "Oh, shit! The super mutant is back!" As the explosion boomed, Hancock took off running.

Danny jerked his head up and raised his gun. "Where ?!"

"I'll go get help!" I called as I ran through the gates.

I got to the _Publick Occurrences_ building and slammed the door shut behind me.

"Well, look who it is!" Piper, the plucky, dark-haired reporter, exclaimed. "If it isn't my old pal, Blue. I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

Just then, Hancock stepped out of the shadows.

Piper raised an eyebrow. "And my second least favorite mayor. How did you get in here?"

"I'll explain in a little while. Right now, I think you need to hide us."

Just then, there was banging on the door, and she ushered us into a closet.

"Just what the hell was all that back there?!" Hancock hissed at me while we were crammed in the dark, tiny space.

"I was trying to distract him." I whispered.

" _That_ …was a fucking disaster! You know, if you had acted normal, we could have just walked right in."

"Sorry. I didn't think it would be that simple."

"We shoulda just taken the back routes."

"I think, eventually, we'll look back on all this laugh."

"Yeah? Heh," he huffed. "It _was_ pretty funny to see how terrible you are at trying to sexually manipulate a random dude."

I pouted. "I don't think I'm ready to laugh about that yet," I said as I rebuttoned the top of my dress.

"You can come out now," Piper called to us.

We stepped out of the closet. I was still pouting but Hancock was grinning from ear to ear.

"So, you wanna tell me why security was at my door asking about a girl in a blue dress and a guy in a red coat?"

"It ain't obvious?" Hancock said with his hands in the air as he waltzed over to the table and poured himself a drink. "I wanted to pay you a visit, and I decided to take the front door like a dignified ghoul."

"Is that so?" She remarked snidely, "Did you feel dignified hiding in my closet?"

"Sure," he said, downing the whiskey he just poured. "I've never objected to being stuck in a tight space with attractive company." He motioned toward me. "You've met my wife, Felina."

It was the first opportunity he had to introduce me that way, and I was thrilled. I smirked and made a slight curtsey.

Piper's face contorted, and she put her fingers to her temple. "When I met you, you had just escaped Vault 111 and were looking for your baby. You disappear for what…a year? And come back _married_ to John Hancock, the ghoul playboy mayor of Goodneighbor. How the hell does that happen? "

"Thought it would give that interview you wanted a little sex appeal," he retorted.

Piper shook her head in disbelief. "Looks like I had you pegged all wrong, Blue."

"Blue?" Hancock looked at me quizzically.

"I was still wearing a vault suit when she met me," I explained.

He snickered. "You would have been better off wearing a target on your back."

"I've come a long way since then, alright?" I was starting to get defensive.

She sat down on the couch. "So are you going to tell me what's going on? Did you ever find your son?"

"Yes, I did."

"You did?!" She perked up. "So what happened?"

I got her up to speed on everything I'd been up to since I last saw her. She was amazed and ecstatic over all the information she was getting, and eager to do something about Mayor McDonough.

"One problem, though," she said. "You still don't have any proof that will hold up to public scrutiny."

"But I saw the reports firsthand! He's a synth that was put here by the Institute to tell them everything that goes on in Diamond City. Concrete evidence. I couldn't have asked for more direct proof."

"But do you have these reports with you?"

"Well, no, I only read the transcripts and some notes on Justin Ayo's terminal. I never saw a physical copy of them."

"I believe you, but these people? They don't know you from Adam. No one is going to believe you've been to the Institute and back. 'How did you get there, Felina?'" Then she imitated my voice. "'Oh, I just teleported. It's the only way in.' …And to top it all off, you brought Mayor Hancock to back up your story? That's not exactly going to add to your credibility when everyone knows they have beef. What's your motivation for demonizing McDonough? Simple. He's your very much hated brother-in-law that banned people like your husband from town. I'm sorry, but there's just not anything I can do with that information."

"Well, shit." I was dejected. "I didn't really look at it that way. I just kind of figured we'd confront him, maybe wave some guns around, and everything would work out."

Piper frowned. "You don't really have the wits about you that I remember when we first met." She pointed a thumb at Hancock. "Has this one got you using or something?"

Hancock scowled. "You ain't gotta answer that. In fact, we don't have to take this. Let's go. I knew this was a bad idea."

"Well, now, hold on." Piper reached a hand out. "Let's just think about this a little bit. Besides, you can't just walk out of here. I convinced security you guys weren't in _here_ , but they're probably still looking for you out _there_."

"So, what do you propose?" I asked.

We had a seat, and she asked me to try to recall every detail I could about the reports I saw, all the while taking notes.

"The most recent note I read suggested that he may have outlived his usefulness, and they may have to 'retire' him."

"That's all well and good," she interrupted me. "But that hasn't happened yet. And there's something that's been nagging at me. How does he relay these reports?"

"Well, I don't know exactly who physically collects them, but Justin Ayo sends someone to get them in person."

"And you told me before that the Institute tried to convince you to work for them, so as far as they know, you're still on their side, am I right?" Piper was onto something.

Hancock smiled as he lit a cigarette. "Hey, I think I see where this is going. You traipse up to McDonough's office and convince them that you're here to pick up the report."

"Bingo!" Piper exclaimed.

"That ain't gonna work, though," Hancock asserted. "Not without some help." He pulled out the small case we kept our pharmacy in and removed the grape mentats. "After witnessing your little scene at the gate, I don't think you can pull it off without a little boost to your charisma."

Piper snorted. "I knew it."

I reached for the chems. "Yeah, he's right though."

"So are we doing this right now?" she asked

I crunched three in my mouth. "Absolutely."

Hancock pressed a kiss to my cheek. "Just promise me you won't try any of that flirty stuff on McDonough. That would bother me in more ways than one," he said, looking down and shaking his head.

…

Once Felina was out the door, Piper and I were left with only each other's company. She was sitting with her arms crossed in a dining chair across from where I was on the couch. Idly tapping my fingers on my knees, I decided to break the silence. "So…"

"You don't have to do that."

"Do what?"

"Make small talk."

"Fair enough." I pulled the tin of mentats out of my coat.

She huffed. "You don't have to do that either."

"You ain't leaving me with a whole lot of options here, sister."

She got up and walked across the room to her printing press, beginning to fiddle with its components. "So how did Felina end up –" she shuddered, "- marrying you? She seems really… nice. And you don't really seem like the marrying kind."

"I wasn't, until I met her."

"That's it?"

I looked up in thought, then back at Piper. "Yeah, pretty much."

"You just suddenly decided you wanted to be tied down because you like her so much," she said incredulously.

"The operative word here is 'love', not 'like'. Anyway, I ain't tied down. If anything, I'm set free."

"How does that work?"

"Because… she just gets me. No one has ever made me feel like I belong the way she has. She doesn't judge me or try to change me. She just loves me."

Piper was quiet for a moment. "That… that's pretty hard to argue with."

After an hour had passed, I started getting fidgety. "How long do you think this should take?"

Piper didn't look up from whatever she was doing to her newspaper press. "I dunno. Shouldn't be much longer."

Another hour went by, and I started having trouble keeping my composure. I took a few mentats and walked across the room to peek out the window. "She should have been back by now."

Piper glanced over at the clock. "How long has it been?"

"Two hours."

Little worry lines appeared across her forehead. "Yeah, that does seem a little excessive… Maybe McDonough was in some sort of meeting or something, and she had to wait."

Three hours later, and I was close to livid. "Something happened. I'm going up there myself." I started toward the door.

"No, don't!" Piper exclaimed. "If something _did_ happen, what could _you_ possibly do about it?"

"I can't just sit here and do nothing, Piper! What if she's in trouble?"

"You wouldn't even make it up to his office. As soon as the guards see a ghoul walking the streets, you're done for."

"Then _you_ go!" I said, violently flinging my arm outward.

"Under what pretense do I have to see the mayor? He refuses to interact with me on normal days because of the newspaper. If he caught on to what Felina's doing, he'd know my meddling is more than coincidental, and I'd be in the same whatever-boat that she's in."

I raised my arm up to my head and leaning against it on the wall. This wasn't going to work for me…

…

I changed into my suit, since security was looking for someone in my blue dress, and proceeded to McDonough's office alone. Up at the reception desk, I was greeted by his dainty blonde secretary, Geneva. "How can I help you?"

"I'm here to see the mayor," I said with confidence.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"I was sent by Mr. Ayo. He said you would know what that means."

"Uh?…Oh. Yeah. Let me just…let him know you are here." She left me standing at her desk while she went through the door behind her. I stood there, patiently, trying not to blow it with my bad acting. She came back after a couple minutes and waved me in.

Mayor McDonough was standing to greet me when I walked in. "Ah, welcome!" He was a tight-assed, dumpy-looking man in a patched three-piece suit. His gray mustache made me wonder how old Hancock was. I didn't know whether to be impressed or repelled by the Institute's attention to detail in making him look so below average. "Geneva says you and I have a mutual friend."

"Yes. Mr. Ayo. He sent me to get the report."

"Of course," McDonough narrowed his eyes at me. "But I am a little confused."

"Why is that?"

"I wasn't expecting anyone to collect a report so soon. And…I've never seen you before."

 _Shit_. "I'm…new. Justin asked me to stop by for the report when I could since I was already traveling the Commonwealth, and it would save them the risk of having too many scouts roaming this area at once. I suppose I was just more efficient than he counted on."

"Ah, yes, that does make sense."

_Success._

"How is Mr. Ayo?" McDonough asked. "Doing well, I hope."

"To be honest, he's a pain in the ass."

"Yes, well, sometimes it's the best way to get things done." He began thumbing through some folders in his desk. "Since you're somewhat early, my report is a little lighter than usual. I hope he doesn't give you too much trouble over it." He held the report out to me.

I had it. It was in my hands. "I'm sure he'll understand. I mean, he'll have to, right?"

"Of course, of course." He chuckled in a disturbing way.

"Now, if you don't mind, you don't get as efficient as I do by idly chit-chatting, so I really must be going. I have other business to attend to…for our mutual friends."

He flashed me a repellent smile. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms..uh?"

"Felina. _Mrs_. Felina _Hancock_."

"Whu..?!"

"Nicetomeetyoumayor." I bolted.

"Geneva! Stop her!"

I just couldn't resist. But, as a result, I had the entire town looking for me once again. I hid for hours, waiting for security to die down. Once it was dark and most of the efforts were focused outside of town in the Fens, I started sneaking back to Piper's house.

I could hear Hancock's shouting at Piper all the way outside the _Publice Occurances_ building. "Then _you_ go!"

I couldn't hear Piper's reply, since she wasn't yelling back.

After a few moments of quiet, Hancock spoke again. "What about Nick? Maybe you could get him to go snoop around up there for us."

"I don't know if –" Piper stopped midsentence, and both turned to stare as I came through the door. I tossed her the report, and her eyes lit up. "I can't believe that worked!" she gushed as she flipped through it.

"Me neither."

Hancock walked up behind me and put his arms around my waist from the back, kissing my neck. "I was starting to worry, love. What took you so long?"

"You don't want to know, mi amor."

He spoke softly into my ear, giving me goosebumps. "Try me."

"Once he had already given me the report, I told him I was your wife. Then he flipped his shit, and I had to hide from security."

Hancock laughed. "That was stupid, but goddamn if I ain't proud!" He dipped me down into a kiss, which lasted longer than it should have in polite company.

Piper was too excited over the report to care. "Listen to this: 'Hancock won't shut up about me. Every caravan that comes from Goodneighbor is loaded with hearsay and rumors about my loyalties. We need to step up our plan to deal with him.' Here's another interesting one, to me anyway: 'Piper almost managed to get a hold of some information that could compromise my position. I've managed to keep things out of her hands so far, but she is clever. I am reiterating my recommendation that we consider her more of a priority.' Man, this is good stuff. The best part is the idiot handwrote all of this, so if I put a picture of it in the paper with my story, the proof will be pretty damning."

Still in the dip position, I broke away from Hancock's mouth. "Glad to help!"

"You two can stay and lay low as long as you like. It's the least I can do. Besides, you'll probably want to be here when I publish this. Shit's probably going to hit the fan, and I get the distinct impression that that's what you came to see."

She stayed up all night, pressing her "special edition" of _Publick Occurrences_ to be distributed the very next morning. Hancock and I sat on the couch and thumbed through the first hot copy she pressed. I giggled and he snickered as we read through the article and saw that she gave us full credit for supplying her with the information. Normally, she would protect her sources, but everyone was already aware that something was up with all the commotion we caused the day before, so we had insisted she include us.

When Diamond City started to wake up, Piper's little sister was already in the market, passing out copies. We watched discreetly from the window, peaking from behind the curtains. Slowly but surely, people in town were starting to get riled up over the paper, and a small crowd began to gather at the mayor's door.

Nick came by Piper's house and was in no way surprised to see us there. He informed us that McDonough had barricaded himself in his office and was holding Geneva hostage. Piper wasted no time getting to the stands when she heard this. Hancock and I figured we were in the clear since the paper described our roles in this, so we came out of hiding and followed her with Nick closely behind.

I heard whispers and snippets of comments about Hancock and me as we passed through the town. We shoved our way through the crowd in front of the mayor's office where security was on the other side, holding the people back. They saw who we were, and allowed us through.

Piper was already there, trying to bust into the office. "Open the door, McDonough!"

"I hope you break your foot trying to break that door down!"

I started looking through Geneva's desk for a key when I noticed a button under the desk. I pushed it, and the door came open.

McDonough was standing just inside with a gun pointed at us. Geneva was on her knees next to him, hands in the air and crying.

"That's far enough!" he yelled. "I'm not going to be discarded and tossed to the wolves, you understand. I'm the mayor, goddammit!"

"Let the hostage go, and we can help you," Nick assured him.

He was skeptical, but eventually agreed. Geneva fled to Nick's arms, but the mayor was still pointing his gun at us. "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to walk out of this town a free man or else I'm taking as many of you filthy, disgusting savages with me as I can."

"No, you'll stand trial," Piper asserted. "Lord knows you have plenty to answer for."

"Trial? Please-"

Before another word could leave his mouth, Hancock moved forward with definitive force, coat tails flowing with his steps and his sawed-off, double barrel shotgun aimed steadily at McDonough. "This is for all those ghouls, you bastard!" He blew McDonough's head clean off. It flew backwards into the wall, bounced to the floor, and rolled to a stop at our feet, the body still spewing blood through its neck.

Piper gasped and jumped back, while Geneva buried her face in Nick's trench coat. I just froze.

"And Mayor McDonough's term ends with a bang," Nick sneered.

Hancock stood over the still twitching synth body, looking down. "And this is for my brother..." He spit on the corpse. His face was painted with rage, but he had tears in his eyes. "…Goddammit," he muttered under his breath.


	19. One Last Trip

The crowd outside was shouting for us to turn their mayor's body over to them. Without a word or a glance, Hancock calmly walked down the hall to McDonough's sleeping quarters.

I turned to Piper. "Please don't hold that against Hancock. They never would have let McDonough leave this city alive."

She glanced at the unruly crowd behind us for a moment. "I suppose not. I just hope _they_ don't hold it against Hancock."

"I think we should give them what they want. So they can see the synth component for themselves."

"I don't really want to be here for that. It will probably get messy." She looked down at the blood on her shoes. "Messier."

"You go on and tell security to let them through. I'm going to go see if I can talk to Hancock."

I locked the double doors to the hallway behind me and walked slowly down. The sounds of the bloodthirsty crowd outside were muffled but still audible. When I came to the threshold of the mayor's room, I saw Hancock sitting in a chair with his back to me, his head low. I approached him carefully. I started to reach for his shoulder, but as I neared him I saw his hands clasped and his forehead was bowed. I backed off and sat quietly on the bed.

After a few moments, he raised his head up and looked over at me.

"I'm not interrupting, am I?" I asked with caution.

"No, it's fine. I'm fine. I think." He sighed. "It's just, that didn't really bring me the satisfaction I would have liked. It certainly didn't bring my brother back, not that I thought it would."

I nodded. "Truly, I know what you mean. I felt the same way when I killed Kellogg. And when I finally found Shaun..."

"The Institute has been destroying families and devastating people like us for as long as I can remember. They have to be stopped."

"Maybe it's time we go back to Sanctuary." I suggested. "Sturges has that holotape with the Institute data on it. Maybe by now he has figured out a way to bring them down."

* * *

We returned to Sanctuary, and Preston was relieved to see I was okay. I asked him to come with me to talk to Sturges so I could explain everything. We met at my house, and I gave them a rundown of my experience inside the Institute and the events that unfolded in Diamond City. Preston was a little wary at first, but after some convincing, he was behind our cause. Sturges was obliged to help us.

"I was hoping there would be something worth all the time I spent cracking their encryption." he informed us. "The holotape you brought back did have a plan of the Institute complex. We may be able to blow the whole compound up from the inside if we attach a fusion pulse charge to their reactor and detonate it remotely."

"How much time do you need?" I asked.

"Let me go see what I can dig up in the workshop and get an idea."

"I have some concerns to address, General," Preston spoke up.

"I'm listening."

"That's sure to be a pretty big, and pretty deadly, explosion. I'm not entirely convinced that everyone living in the Institute deserves to die because of the decisions of people working above them. I'm not really comfortable with the idea of killing all those people."

Hancock raised his eyebrows, "Yeah that's a pretty valid point."

"Well," I said, thinking out loud. "What if I were to issue some kind of evacuation warning?"

Sturges shook his head. "That's certainly going to alert the higher ups of what you're doing and may make it impossible for you to leave if they deactivate the relay in your pip-boy."

I added, "They may become aware of my actions even before that, so I'm going to need an alternate exit strategy, regardless."

Sturges stroked his chin in thought. "I should be able to use the data we have to program a holotape that will allow you to access the main relay. In fact, if I can do that, you can teleport any number of people in and out of the Institute…"

I looked over at Preston. "Minutemen troops?"

He nodded. "You're still the General. You've got our support."

"I can get the holotape done right away, but I need some time to construct the fusion pulse charge."

"I'll take that holotape as soon as it's done," I told Sturges. "When you're done with the charge, I'll transport to the Institute, and if all is well, I will infiltrate the reactor, issue the evacuation, and meet you guys at a secure location to detonate it. Everyone should be on standby just in case, and if I need you, I'll bring you in."

"In theory that should work," Sturges replied.

"That's a pretty sound plan, yeah? Can we agree to that?" I asked.

"Sounds pretty good to me," Preston said with a nod.

"You got some time to think about it," Sturges interjected. "I still need to get all of those things in order before you can proceed."

"Well then." I clasped my hands together. "Let's get started."

* * *

I got the Institute relay targeting sequence from Sturges that afternoon, but he still needed a few days on the fusion pulse charge. Hancock and I didn't stray too far from Sanctuary while he was busy getting things together. During that time, Trashcan Carla's caravan came through town. Her knowledge of the Mayor McDonough incident made it obvious how quickly word spread through the Commonwealth, and I probably should have been concerned about the Institute catching wind of what we were planning, but I was too distracted to even think about that.

Ever since the showdown with McDonough, Hancock had been using more heavily than usual. At first, I figured he just needed a quick binge to get past whatever demons the incident had drudged up, but after a few days, when he didn't show any signs of slowing down, I got worried.

The same night that Carla had camped in Sanctuary, I was confined to the house taking care of a junked-up Hancock. I had become a full time babysitter and had resorted to hiding all our chems after he took a dangerous dose of med-x. I would have just disposed of them, but if I didn't take a hit myself from time to time, the withdrawals were unbearable. He was lying in bed, alternating between near comatose rambling and throwing fits. Of all the things he had taught me about this lifestyle, he never prepared me for this.

He was writhing around on the mattress. "Please, Felina, please! Just one more hit, I need it."

"No! I'm not sure you can handle what you've already taken."

"Of course I can! Ghouls are immortal-"

"That's not how that works, John, and you and I both know it."

"Felina…you know how much I love you, don't you?"

"Of course! I love you, too. It's going to be ok. You just need to let your system clear out."

"No, you don't understand. I love you more than anything. I fucked everything up. I fucked my life up, and now I'm fucking up yours." His face was streaked with tears.

I kept petting him, trying to calm him down. He was sweaty and cold. "No, you're not, mi amor…"

"I am! I could have done everything differently. If I hadn't been such a fuck up, I could have still been a smooth skin when we met-"

"That doesn't matter! Please stop-"

"You don't understand! I don't deserve you, and now…now I'm gonna have to watch you die."

My heart was pounding. "Please stop talking like that."

"You're gonna get old and die, and I'm gonna have to watch and go on for another hundred years without you. Everyone I know will be dead and I'll have to be alone…"

I was fighting back tears. "Don't move, John. I'm going to go get some help."

I went outside to Carla's caravan to see if she had some addictol or anything that might bring him down, because I couldn't handle it anymore. It didn't matter how many caps I threw at her, she didn't have something that could help.

When I returned to the house, I walked through the front door, and my heart stopped. Hancock was on the living room floor slumped against the couch, motionless. The bag I had hidden with all the chems in it was open next him, and he had several hypodermic needles still sticking out of his arm.

I ran to him and fell to my knees. "NO! Nonononono!" I shook him. "Wake up, John! Wake up!" He was unresponsive. I tried to feel for a pulse, signs of breath, anything, but I wasn't finding any hope. "John! You can't leave me! Not like this!" Tears were streaming down my face. I cradled him in my arms and cried on the floor.

The moonlight pouring through the open front door was suddenly blocked by a shadow. Carla had followed me and was standing in the doorway. I looked up at her, sobbing through tears and holding Hancock. She slowly walked over to me and put a hand on my shoulder, pulling a syringe out of her bag.

"It's too late, Carla," I cried.

She suddenly jabbed the needle in my neck, and I blacked out.

* * *

When I regained consciousness, I was strapped to a gurney in a blindingly bright room surrounded by medical equipment. I wiggled an arm free and unstrapped myself. I saw Hancock was on the gurney to my left.

My eyes started to well up again as I moved over to him. He was still fully dressed from the waist down, but his shirt was unbuttoned and his sleeves pushed up with monitors attached to his bare skin. I draped my arms over him and laid my head on his chest. I was sobbing quietly and could feel my heart beating in my head.

Slowly, my eyes started to focus on the heart monitor he was strapped to that was beeping in time. That's when I realized I was actually hearing his heartbeat. I shot up and felt at his face. It was warm! I started unstrapping him.

"John?" I hissed in a whisper. He didn't respond, but I could see his chest rise and fall as he breathed.

I started to regain my rationale. I replayed my last memories in my head and tried to get a handle on the situation. Carla. She was one of them.

It was hard to concentrate because the withdrawals were kicking in again. I glanced around the room for a hit of something, which was when I realized there was another body in a holding tank, floating upright in some kind of liquid. I froze in shock. It was Nate.

With my eyes on the tank, I started moving backwards when I tripped and fell to the floor.

I heard someone speak on an intercom. "I'm really disappointed in you, Felina." It was Shaun. "I had higher expectations for someone I shared genetics with. I had hoped you would share the Institute's vision for the future and that you would have helped further our cause. Instead, I hear that you've been running around with riff raff, acting as a terrorist, strung out on chems. While this is distressing, I haven't given up on you entirely."

While he was speaking, I had started frantically investigating the room to discover I was locked in. "Where are you?!" I called out.

"I'm nearby. It is not important."

I took inventory of what I had on me. No weapons, but I still had my pip-boy. The relay interceptor holotape that Sturges had programmed was still held in its deck where I left it. I rushed to Hancock and checked his boot for the knife he kept tucked away. I took it and hid it on myself.

"What is important," Shaun continued, "Is gaining your loyalty. The board has no interest in you, and would just as soon dispose of you if I would allow them, but I don't want that. You are still my mother, and I want nothing more than for us to put our differences aside and be a family. I don't pretend to understand your sentiments for the outside world, yet I don't deny that they exist. Just as I have softness for you as my mother, I recognize that you have some sort of attachment to this _abomination_ that you have been traveling with. It was fortunate that one of our synths was in the vicinity when he lethally dosed himself."

I instinctively looked over to Hancock. He was still comatose.

"We resuscitated him for you and treated his addiction. He is in stable condition, and when the time is right, we will restore his consciousness. In the meantime, I have a proposition for you. You may have noticed the third body in the room with you resembles that of your late husband's. I had an associate retrieve him from the vault. We gave him a more appropriate resting place and replicated his appearance. The body in the room with you is a blank synth. Since it has come to my attention that you consider your ghoul friend to be your current husband, I intend to impart his consciousness into Nate's replica."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "What kind of monster are you?!" I screamed. "Why would I want that?"

"I think if you give it some consideration, you'll find it to be an ideal scenario. I understand that it's possible to look past appearances to love, but if you are going to reside within the Institute's walls, you cannot have an irradiated being with you, this being the reason that I have the two of you quarantined. Please forgive me for the confining conditions of this room."

"And what if I say no?"

He sighed. "Of course, I can't force you to agree, but if you still assert that you do not wish to ally with us, I will turn you both lose into the Commonwealth. However, if this is the path you chose, I cannot abide your presence here anymore. You may never return to the Institute, and all of our representatives on the outside will consider you hostile. I cannot be held responsible for their actions toward you out there. I strongly suggest you think about this. For now, you will remain in this room. Your companion is not yet ready to be released from care, and we mean to treat you for radiation poisoning and chemical addiction. This would be a good time to consider your options."

* * *

I was stuck. I couldn't find a way out of the room. There was no terminal I could hack and no keyhole on the door for me to pick. At some point, food was passed to me through a chamber in the wall, but I didn't eat it. All I could do was sit and think. I sat next to Hancock in a chair with my back to the disturbing synth replica of Nate.

What the fuck was Shaun thinking? Didn't he realize how vexing and painful it would be to have Hancock's personality in a synthetic clone of Nate? That was his idea of trying to win me over? How could I support a society that thought things like that were good ideas? I kept thinking about how they handled my whole situation in the vault and what they did to Diamond City. Those were just the examples of their meddling I had observed firsthand.

But if I refused his terms, they would dump us back on the outside, and I wouldn't be able to execute our plan, and they could continue to fuck up the Commonwealth indefinitely. If I played along so I could plant the device on the nuclear reactor, I would be stuck with the mentally agonizing amalgamation of Hancock and Nate. It would be a constant reminder of how I replaced Nate, and that's only one of the many horrifying reasons it would be so wrong.

On the upside, they did manage to save Hancock's life.

I examined the equipment they had him hooked up to. There was a helmet with straps, I assumed for transferring him to the synth. I removed it and replaced his tricorn hat. He had an IV drip connected to his arm. Monitors flashed and beeped. I tried to understand the readouts it was displaying. Best I could figure, he really was stable and every process it was watching was functioning properly. So why wasn't he conscious, yet?

I took a closer look at the IV bag. The liquid was clear, so it couldn't be addictol or blood. It wouldn't make sense for it to be any form of radaway. I pulled the needle out of his skin. Something lit up on the monitor, and after a few moments, he started stirring.

"John?"

His eyes lids slowly opened and he groaned. "What's…going on?"

I nestled his head in my arms and kissed him tenderly. "I'm so glad you're ok."

He looked around the room and saw all the medical equipment. "Shit. Felina, I'm sorry. Did I O.D.?"

"Yeah, but this isn't what you think. We were kidnapped by the Institute, and they revived you."

His face was scrunched up in confusion. "Why?"

"To convince me to join them."

He sat up. "Really? In that case, you probably should have just let me die." He looked over at the liquid tank. "What's that about?"

"John, meet my first husband, Nate."

"What the f-?"

Just then, two scientists in hazmat suits busted through the door. One of them addressed me. "Why is he disconnected? Did you do this?"

I jumped up and slashed his suit open with the knife I got off Hancock earlier. The man panicked, grabbing at the hole.

The other guy started toward Hancock to restrain him. Hancock reached for the IV drip and pulled the tubing around the scientist's throat. He struggled, pulling at his neck, but eventually he choked out.

Meanwhile, I was battling it out with the first guy.

"Just calm down, lady!" He had his arms reached out in defense while I held the knife pointed at him.

Hancock searched the passed out scientist and found an Institute pistol on him. He pointed it at the first guy.

"Wait." I looked at Hancock holding the pistol.

The scientist looked back and saw the barrel pointed at him. He raised his hands over his head.

"So you guys are armed?" I asked.

"Y-yes."

"So why haven't you drawn your weapon?"

"We were instructed not to hurt you, Miss Felina."

I cocked a half smile and gave Hancock a nod. He busted him over the head with the pistol, and the scientist fell to the floor.

While I searched the Institute scientist for a gun, Hancock pulled all the monitors off of himself and buttoned his shirt up.

"You feeling alright?" I asked him.

"Oh, yeah. Better than ever."

I tossed his knife back to him. He caught it and gave it a twirl before sliding it back into his boot.

"We're proceeding with the original plan," I instructed him as I cocked the Institute rifle.

"Game on."


	20. Set the World On Fire

Outside the room, all was quiet. We ducked down and moved covertly. I instantly recognized the hall as a wing off of Shaun's quarters. I led the way to the relay control room. We encountered a few synths along the way, but we never gave away our position to kill them. Once we were there, I loaded the holotape.

Initially, we couldn't tell if it did anything. "What's supposed to happen?" Hancock asked.

"I don't know, the troops are just supposed to…appear, I guess." Alarms started to go off. "Or that!"

"Maybe they weren't ready," Hancock said, apprehension written on his face.

"No! No no no, they have to be!"

"Did they even know we were here?"

I took a deep breath. "I have no idea."

"We'll just have to do it without them," Hancock insisted. "Do you have the fusion explosive thingy?"

I felt my stomach turn. "No."

"Well, we're fucked."

That moment, there was a flash of light as Preston materialized in the chamber, stepping forward. More people appeared in the glow behind him, one at time.

"General! We were worried sick about you. Here." He tossed me the pulse charge.

I pumped my fist in the air.

"Fuck, yes!" Hancock and I exclaimed in unison.

Sturges stepped forward, lugging some heavier artillery. "I grabbed some extra stuff just in case."

"I'll take that," Hancock said, selecting a minigun.

"The reactor is over near the Advanced Systems area," Sturges informed us. "It will have to be unlocked from the director's room."

I grabbed a railway rifle. "Got it. ¡Vamonos!"

* * *

Preston and the Minutemen covered us as we fought our way through. Hancock and I split from them so I could get to Shaun's terminal. When I entered his room, he was lying in bed. I approached his side, but Hancock hung back a little.

"I trusted you," Shaun said weakly. "I offered you solutions. I never gave up on you, and now you intend to destroy us all? I hope you're happy. You're ruining humanity's last hope for the future. All our work…wasted…"

"All of your work was misguided. You don't understand people at all. Why don't you come with me? I can show you why the Commonwealth is worth saving."

"I could never do that. I'm dying of cancer, Felina, but none of that matters, now, does it?"

"…I didn't know."

"Would it have changed anything if you did?"

I looked down on him, heartbroken. "No."

"I didn't think so."

"I'm doing what's best for the people, Shaun. Can't you see that?"

"No, I cannot. You've seen what it's like up there. The people in that wasteland are doomed. And now you're dooming us, too."

"It doesn't have to be like this." I put my hand on his arm. "Come with me."

"It's too late for that. Just…just leave me. There's nothing else to say." He turned his head away from me.

I was stunned. I looked over at Hancock, and his face was contorted with pensive sympathy. There was nothing I could do. I had to keep going. I sat down at his computer and attempted to access the reactor lock, but I couldn't get through.

Behind me, I heard a meek, "9…"

I snapped my head around. Hancock and I looked at Shaun intently.

"…0…0…3."

I didn't give Shaun enough credit. The phrase "humanity's best hope for the future" had gushed from his mouth so many times, I thought he had been completely brainwashed by the Institute, but now I could see, a little bit of Nate and me had managed to survive inside him after all. I lamented this as I entered the code he gave me, unlocking the terminal. From there, I was able to open the reactor core and issue an evacuation notice.

I stood up from the desk and walked over to my son. I pressed my fingertips up to my lips and then gently touched his head with them. "Goodbye, Shaun."

* * *

Back in the main foyer of the Institute, battle was in full swing between the Minutemen and the Institute synths. Hancock and I blazed in, a steady stream of bullets flowing out of the minigun as he swept it back and forth across waves of synths to the tune of _Ride of the Valkyries_ playing on my pip-boy radio. I sprinted to the Advanced Systems corridor.

Through the door, scientists' reactions spanned both ends of the spectrum with many running from the fight in hysteria while others attempted to fight back.

We got closer to the reactor, and the concentrations of synths increased. Hancock and I invoked the twosome death-dealing we had first discovered we were capable of while fighting synths with Paladin Danse. Lasers whizzed past us from all directions as we waltzed around each other, back to back. I pinned hostile scientists and coursers against the walls and equipment with railway spikes, turning like a carousel. All the while, Hancock would deal the final blows as the pinned foes came into his view. After taking care of the bulk of them, I gave Hancock a nod and made a break for the reactor.

A laser nicked the tip of his hat, burning a small hole. "Oh, I'm feral now!" The minigun hung heavily at Hancock's waist, spewing bullets powerfully from its red hot tip. Perforated synth bodies steadily hit the floor one after another. He continued to yell out victorious obscenities while mowing down the robots as I raced up the stairs to the core.

I was staggered by a surge of radiation that hit me when I opened the reactor door. I could feel pulses of energy flowing through me, and I was almost glowing. Despite this, I managed to rig the explosive device to the luminous blue column.

Our warfare was so thorough that we hardly encountered any more threats on our way back to the teleportation chamber.

"Alright, Sturges, we're done," Preston called to him as we approached. "Get us the hell out of here."

"I would, man, but uh…"

"Please, mom!" I heard a child's voice. "Don't leave me here!"

"This kid showed up. Says Felina is his mom."

It was the replica of Shaun. I looked down at the little boy. "Why did you call me mom?"

"What? Because you're my mom!" He was terribly upset. "I want to go with you!"

This raised so many questions, but I felt a cavalcade of emotions rise up in me, and none of the answers mattered.

"Ok," I smiled through tears. "Come with me."

"I'm glad you were here to save me," he said.

I grabbed the little boy's hand and looked over at Hancock. He was smiling serenely. "All right, Sturges. Fire it up."

* * *

We teleported to the top of a building within sight of the CIT ruins.

"Sturges figured this was a safe enough distance from the blast radius," Preston told us. "As soon as you're ready to see 'humanity's best hope for the future' go up in smoke, just hit that button."

I looked around at everyone standing on the rooftop with me. Preston, a few Minutemen, Hancock – they were all eagerly awaiting the pressing of that button. Shaun, still holding my hand, looked up at me with love in his little synth eyes.

I pushed down with resolution. In the distance, a blue glow swelled. A massive mushroom cloud erupted before the blast sound made it to where were watching from, just as the classical music station went silent forever. The ground shook and rubble crumbled in on itself. The clouds of smoke and debris rose up into the sky with glorious conclusiveness as a tranquil feeling washed over me. Finally, the feeling of closure that had been eluding me.

I was free. Everyone was - by my hand. In that moment, I was a bigger hero than Lynn, and I didn't even know it mattered to me until then. I had avenged Nate. I had Shaun. I had Hancock. I won everything.

"No more Institute, huh? Never thought I would see the day," Hancock said as he put an arm around my midsection from behind. "Can't say they didn't get what was coming to them. You did damn good."

Shaun tugged at my sleeve.

"What is it, mi hijo?" I said with a smile.

He handed me a holotape.

"What is this?"

"I am supposed to give that to you."

I pocketed the tape and pulled him closer

We all stood and watched with wonder at the crater where the Commonwealth's most insidious foe once was. We didn't leave until the last masses of the cloud settled.


	21. Fight or Flight

I was still over the moon when we returned to Sanctuary. It was late, so we showed Shaun to his new room and tucked him into bed. He fell asleep almost instantly, and I asked my old prewar Mr. Handy bot, Codsworth, to keep an eye on him while Hancock and I went to the tavern.

All the settlers were there, drinking and celebrating our victory. I was feeling invincible, and after a few too many drinks, I started hounding Hancock to go on an impromptu adventure.

"You have some serious thrill issues," he said, shaking his head. "What did you have in mind?"

"I want to return the power armor to the Brotherhood." I knocked back the last of a pint and smacked the empty glass down on the bar with a thud. "I don't need it anymore. I don't want it either."

"You should let sleeping dogs lie. Ain't you the same girl who told me once that we shouldn't manufacture brawls in the Commonwealth?"

"C'mon, party boy! Don't go getting soft on me."

He raised a brow at me. "Is that a dare?"

"What if it is?" I asked playfully.

"Then you're on."

We shot up some psycho and started off towards the Prydwen. I had Hancock wearing the power armor so that it wasn't apparent he was a ghoul, and once we were on board, we marched toward the armory. No one even took notice of our presence until Hancock exited the T-60 suit into a repair hangar and stepped out. Suddenly, everyone's memories were jogged of who we were.

"You!" The paladin that had exchanged words with Hancock before was the first to speak up. "You two have a lot of nerve coming back here now…"

Everyone on deck was watching as Hancock grabbed me by my arm and twirled me over to him, pulling me into a kiss. I heard the disgusted groans of everyone around us. While our lips were locked, he grabbed my ass, and I curled one leg up with a giggle. When he pulled away from my mouth, he locked eyes with the paladin. Hancock grinned mischievously and winked at him.

"Oh, you're fucking dead, freak!" the paladin shouted as he drew his laser rifle.

Still holding me by my arm, Hancock took off, dragging me behind him. Lasers flew past our cheeks, narrowly missing us as we fled the halls of the airship. We dropped down under the grating by some stairs and ran back the way we came while everyone shot at us through the floor. Someone started shouting something about holding fire before the whole ship went up in flames. In the commotion, they lost track of us, and we slipped into a supply closet on another floor.

"You don't know how badly I wanted to do that the first time you brought me here," Hancock said with a sinister smile.

"That was fun and all, but now how are we going to get out of here?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." He moved closer to me. "All that stuff that happened on deck? That was just foreplay." His hand slowly slid up to my breasts as he leaned in to kiss me again. He was grinding me lightly into the wall, gradually moving his mouth down my body. Once he was down on his knees, he lifted my dress over his head.

"Hancock, _no_!" I hissed.

He pushed my panties aside and began flicking at me with his tongue. I grabbed onto a wire shelf and stifled my moans. It was too late for me to stop him. I was already invested as a tingle of pleasure gripped me, pulling me deeper into the perilous act. I hoisted myself upward by the wire shelves and braced my feet against the door, knocking down various supplies that fell to the floor around us with an ominous thud. He switched up his pace and pattern, and I suppressed a squeal. My legs started to shake, and he grabbed onto them, resting them on his shoulders so I didn't slide down. Still holding onto the shelf with one hand, I put my other over my mouth to muzzle a moan.

He guided my feet to the floor and began opening his fly. I tried to protest, but he pushed his groin tightly against me, pressing me between him and the wall and throwing my legs over his hips. An inexorable longing for him suddenly took hold of me. He guided himself inside me, and it only intensified the buzzing, blurry feeling in my head, emphasized by the fact that we were floating miles above the earth's surface on an enemy airship, strung out on chems. With his increasingly firm grip and gravity working towards my impalement, I felt pretty vulnerable, but I soon found that I was really digging the danger of the position we were in.

He was quiet and careful at first, bouncing me on him and driving into me with steady strokes that felt like one way or another would be the death of me. But as he got closer to completion, our combined weight began making a soft thump against the wall, and his grunts were getting progressively more audible along with the thumps.

Amidst my hitched breathes and reeling desires, I heard footsteps approaching. Wide-eyed and slack-jawed myself, I saw in Hancock's face that he was aware of our impending discovery, but this didn't deter him from finishing what he started. If anything, I think it turned him on more, bringing him closer to his peak. A couple more strokes, and he growled a conclusive moan, holding me in place as he finished. Caught between fight or flight and how absurdly arousing our situation was, my eyes rolled back in my head as he spilled into me.

When I refocused, I looked over Hancock's shoulder, and I was met by the light from outside the closet as a scribe stood confounded in the doorway. Hancock let me down and smiled at him while he fastened his pants, patting him on the back as he moved past him out of the closet. I smoothed out my skirt and followed. The scribe just stood there, staring into the closet. I think he was crying.

We ducked down and started making our way toward the main deck undetected.

"What are we going to do?" I whispered.

"Steal a vertibird, of course."

I gave him a doubtful look, but what other choice did we have?

We made it through the halls unseen, and once we came to the exit, we paused to take a hit of jet so we could maximize our actions. Everything slowed to a crawl as we grasped hands and stepped out onto the open air deck where the vertibirds were docked. There were soldiers posted on either side of the doorway. Their reaction to us was slowed down enough from the jet that we made it onto a vertibird before they even started shooting.

We started pulling levers and hitting switches. "How do you work this thing?!" I shouted. I heard the rumble of the blades kicking into motion, but we weren't moving. The density of the lasers flying in our direction was steadily increasing. The vertibird began to buck, but still remained docked.

"Keep doing what you're doing," Hancock called to me as he crawled onto the outside of the body. "I'll be right back."

I did as instructed, and after a bit of a struggle, the vertibird began to move away from the deck. Hancock crawled back inside the cockpit holding a large metal pin. "Go!" He exclaimed as he tossed it over the side. We began to propel away from the Prydwen, but a soldier in power armor was hanging on by the skids, trying to climb inside.

Hancock hooked one arm into a bar to stabilize himself, his coat flapping violently in the wind. He drew his shotgun on the soldier. "Let go, friend!"

I was straining to gain control over the vehicle, tossing us erratically across the sky. The soldier, managing to hold on by one hand swung at Hancock.

He dodged the blow. "I'm not asking you again! I know you'll survive the fall in that tin bucket you're wearing! Just. Let. Go."

The soldier hoisted himself into the cockpit as Hancock bashed him in the face with the butt of his sawed off. He absorbed the strike, but still lost his footing due to my dubious piloting and fell over the side. Hancock waved to him with a cocky grin.

We bellowed and howled with laughter as we chopped through the atmosphere, the tiny toy-like city and Atlantic Ocean below us. I was on top of the world in every sense of the meaning. Things couldn't get any better.

* * *

We gallivanted through the blue for a while before we headed to Sanctuary. I came to an abrupt, ungraceful landing in the street just past the bridge. With the blades slowing above my head and dust blowing all around, people came rushing to us to see what was going on.

I was still high on the rush of it all when I stepped down onto solid ground and immediately fell. The holotape Shaun had given me flung from my pocket. I had forgotten all about it.

While everyone was gushing over the vertibird, I stepped away from the crowd for some privacy and inserted the holotape into my pip-boy and pressed play.

"If you are hearing this, then the time has come. I am gone." It was Father's voice - the real Shaun. "I can no longer look after young Shaun. I hope that you would be willing. He has been reprogrammed to believe that he is your son. I hope that was not too presumptuous on my part. Both he and you deserve a chance to be a family. Please, take care of him."

There was a pause. "I have also taken the necessary steps to name you as my predecessor… _The Institute is now yours to lead_ … The board will follow your every command. I only hope that you will have the prudence to make equitable use of this power and not let your emotions influence your decisions… I trust you will do the right thing."

Fuck.

I could have had control of it all if I had trusted Shaun. But I threw it all away: food, medicine, working technology - everything the Commonwealth needed to get a jump start on a brighter future – all to be with Hancock.

I looked around. No one was close enough to me to have heard the tape. I ejected it and broke it open. Pulling out my flip lighter and setting fire to its contents, I let the flaming plastic drop by my feet and stared down at it stoically until it finished burning to nothing.

As it stood, everyone thought I was the savior of the Commonwealth, and I still got to have Hancock and a reasonable facsimile to my son.

No one ever had to know how badly I fucked up.

* * *

"It's Travis, your favorite dj in the Commonwealth. Folks, if you haven't already heard, Diamond City Radio has possibly the biggest news in history to share with you. I can confirm without a doubt, that the Institute is no more. You heard me right, they have been completely wiped out! The Minutemen have truly lived up to their ideal of protecting the Commonwealth. Those brave men and women stormed the Institute and blew the whole thing to pieces. I also have it on good authority the Vault Dweller was on the scene. You know, an old friend once told me you have to 'fight the good fight.' Looks like someone we know did just that.

"We all owe her our thanks. Hell, I think it's fair to say we all owe her our lives. So if you were out there, worried about disappearing in the middle of the night, or having your loved ones replaced by robots, you can rest easy. A new day is dawning for Diamond City, folks. Hell, for the whole Commonwealth. Let's make the most of it."

When we arrived as a group back in Sanctuary after destroying the Institute, it was night, and the kid was tuckered out from all the excitement and traveling. Felina and I put him to bed in the room we had prepared for her son all those months back. Once our new addition to the family was sound asleep with Codsworth keeping an eye on him, we set out across the street to the tavern where everyone was celebrating the Institute's demise.

I stopped Felina in the middle of the road before we could get there. "Can we talk for a minute?"

"Of course."

"Please don't think I'm objecting in any way, but I gotta know, who's kid is that? Why does he think you're his mom?"

"Because I am… sorta. He's a synth replica of Shaun."

"They were making synth _kids?_!"

"No, just him. He was a prototype. Please don't tell anyone. I don't want him to know what he is. Not just yet, anyway."

"So, is he going to… grow up?"

"I don't know. But I guess we'll find out eventually, huh?"

I lowered my brow in thought. "I guess so."

"And you're okay with this, right?"

"Of course, love. I'm very happy for you. And me, too. I get to be the daddy to your mommy."

She gave me a peck and began walking across the street again.

I grabbed her by the arm. "Wait."

"What's wrong?"

"I have more to say…"

She turned her body back towards me. "I'm listening."

"Felina… I'm so very, very sorry about… I didn't mean to say all that scary stuff I said to you that night. I never meant to burden you with any of that."

She put her hand on my cheek. "It's okay, querido."

"And I'm really ashamed of myself for overdosing. Something just came over me after... after facing McDonough. More stuff I had kept inside for entirely too long."

"You don't have to keep things bottled up like that. You should know you don't ever have to keep anything from me. That's what I'm here for."

"I promise it will never happen again. I want to spend as much time with you as I can, so I really can't afford to let something like that happen."

"We've all done things we didn't mean or even want to do, John. And we're all going to die sometime. If you spend all your time worrying about death, you'll miss out on life."

"That's exactly why it was never a problem for me in the past. Before you, I used to flirt with death for fun. But now… you're the reason I get out of bed in the morning. Or maybe stay in bed too long, if you want to be accurate about it," I said with a smirk, putting an arm around her mid-section and pulling her closer. I looked into her adoring eyes and felt like I was falling all over again. "Ya know, I keep going over in my head what I could have done to deserve someone like you. I gotta tell ya, there ain't a lot."

She grabbed my hand and started leading me across the street. "C'mon. I don't want to waste anymore of our time together dwelling on the past. We have a clean slate ahead of us, and I want to make the most of it with you."

I smiled. "That's what I'm talking about."

We walked into the tavern and were greeted with boisterous cheers and toasts. I made eye contact with Preston and gave him a nod of respect, which he returned.

He walked over to us. "Hancock. General." He handed us each a bottle. "I owed you a beer anyway," he said to me with a smile.

"What is he talking about?" Felina asked

"Haven't you heard?" I put an arm over his shoulder. "Preston and I are besties now!"

He shook his head with a grin. "You're a trip, Hancock."

"The best kind," I said, holding my beer up to him. He clinked his bottle with mine, and I returned to Felina's side.

"So, General," he began, "the way is now clear for the Commonwealth to finally come together and build something good for the future, but I don't think the Minutemen are going to be out of a job for a long time yet..."

Felina raised an eyebrow at him. "You aren't about to say 'war never changes', are you?"

I stepped in between them. "Will you two lighten up? This is a goddamn party!"

He smiled. "I think we deserve to enjoy our victory."

"I'll drink to that," I said, downing the rest of the beer. "Somebody play the goddamn juke box, will ya? I need another beer…"

 _Atom Bomb Baby_ began to play and the people near the juke box started dancing.

Felina and I sat at the bar, throwing back drink after drink and just having fun.

She had slipped past tipsy to drunk. That's never a problem when you're in a good mood, but then she grabbed my shoulder, putting on a serious face out of nowhere. "I can't believe it's over, John. What am I going to do?"

I felt a pang of anxiety. "Do about what?"

"How are we supposed to go on mind-blowing, exhilarating adventures together now that we have vanquished our foes?" She said dramatically with exaggerated hand gestures.

I smiled with relief. "Don't worry, love. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve to blow your mind..."

"Of course you do, but what about all the dangerous, life-threatening exploits? I think I'm going to miss that. We need to do something, _right now_!"

I leaned forward and cupped her face in my hands. "You are absolutely adorable, you know that? Just relax, love. Take the night off and enjoy yourself. There's still going to be plenty going on around here, but it can wait for now."

"No, it can't. I want to do something right this second. I'm feeling adventure in my very bones…"

"You have some serious thrill issues," I said, shaking my head. I didn't exactly consider that a flaw, though. "What did you have in mind?"

"I want to return the power armor to the Brotherhood." She knocked back her drink, smacking the empty glass down on the bar with resolution. "I don't need it anymore. I don't want it either."

The Brotherhood of Steel. I hadn't thought about them in a while. "You should let sleeping dogs lie. Ain't you the same girl who told me once that we shouldn't manufacture brawls in the Commonwealth?"

"C'mon, party boy! Don't go getting soft on me."

 _Me? Soft? Never_. "Is that a dare?"

"What if it is?" She asked playfully.

"Then you're on."

…

"If she wanted thrills, she came to the right ghoul. Oh, the things I did to her on the Prydwen in front of all those bigots... She couldn't walk straight for a week."

"Why, dad? What happened on the Prydwen?"

"John! You can't tell him that story!"

"Why not, mom?"

I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. "Don't worry, Shaun," I whispered to him. "I'll tell you one day, when you're old enough... if you still want to know… Goodnight, son."


End file.
